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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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Mo.Mr^m^c- 



THE 

PIONEER WOODSMAN 

AS HE IS RELATED TO 

LUMBERING IN THE 

NORTHWEST 



By 
GEORGK HENRY WARREN 



MINNEAPOLIS 

PRESS OF HAHN <& HARMON COMPANY 

1914 



TS 80s 
.W3 



Copyright 1914 
By George Henry Warren 



ws* i V" 



ff\* 



^ 



JUL 13 !5?4~ 



I DEDICATE 

THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF 

WILLIAM S. PATRICK, 

GUIDING FRIEND AND HELPFUL COUNSELOR 

OF MY EARLIER MANHOOD YEARS. 




Foreword. 

HE aim will be to take the reader 
along on the journey of the pioneer 
woodsman, from comfortable hearth- 
stone, from family, friends, books, 
magazines, and daily papers, and to disappear 
with him from all evidences of civilization and 
from all human companionship save, ordinarily, 
that of one helper who not infrequently is an 
Indian, and to live for weeks at a time in the 
unbroken forest, seldom sleeping more than a 
single night in one place. 

The woodsman and his one companion 
must carry cooking utensils, axes, raw provi- 
sions of flour, meat, beans, coffee, sugar, rice, 
pepper, and salt; maps, plats, books for field 
notes ; the simplest and lightest possible equip- 
ment of surveying implements ; and, lastly, tent 
and blankets for shelter and covering at night 
to protect them from storm and cold. 

Incidents of the daily life of these two volun- 
tary reclusionists, as they occurred to the au- 
thor, and some of the results obtained, will be 
told to the reader in the pages which are to 
follow. 







Table of Contents. 



Chapter 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 
XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 
XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 



Sowing the Germ That I Knew Not. 
Preparations for the Wilds of Wisconsin. 
Entering the Wilds of Wisconsin. 

Surveying and Selecting Government Timber 

Lands. 
Gaining Experience — Getting Wet. 
A Birthday Supper. 
A New Contract — Obstacles. 

A Few Experiences in the New and More 
Prosperous Field. 

Tracing Gentlemen Timber Thieves — Getting 
Wet — Fawn. 

Does It Pay to Rest on Sunday? 

Indian Traits — Dog Team. 

Wolves — Log Riding. 

Entering Minnesota, the New Field. 

An Evening Guest — Not Mother's Bread. 

A Hurried Round Trip to Minneapolis — 
Many Incidents. 

The Entire Party Moves to Swan River. 

Methods of Acquiring Government Land — 
An Abandoned Squaw. 

United States Land Sale at Duluth — Joe La- 
Garde. 

Six Hundred Miles in a Birch Canoe. 

Effect of Discovery of Iron Ore on Timber 
Industry. 

Forest Fires. 

White Pine— What of Our Future Supply? 

Retrospect — Meed of Praise. 



Page 
13 
15 
18 

22 
28 
33 
40 

47 

56 
63 
69 
73 

77 
94 

101 

117 

125 

129 
135 

142 
159 
174 
178 






Illustrations. 

George H. Warren. Frontispiece 

Facing Page 

W. S. Patrick. 16 

The "V" shaped baker is a valuable part of the cook's 

outfit. 22 

"The almost saucy, yet sociable red squirrel". 28 

"I found several families of Indians camping at the end of 

the portage." 34 

"In the Vermilion country, dog trains could sometimes 

be advantageously used." 40 

S. D. Patrick. 44 

"There were many waterfalls". 52 

"We succeeded in crossing Burnt Side Lake". 58 

"We started out with two birch canoes". 64 

"The party subsisted well, until it arrived at Ely". 70 

"My three companions and I had gone to sur- 
vey and estimate a tract of pine timber." 74 

The journey had to be made with the use of toboggans. 82 

"Our camp was established on the shores of Kekekabic 

Lake". 88 

"The memorable fire which swept Hinckley". 94 

"The fire destroyed millions of dollars worth 

of standing pine timber". 102 

This illustration kindly loaned by Department of Forestry, 
State of Minnesota. 

"One of the horses balked frequently". 106 

"Our camp was made in a fine grove of pig-iron Norway". 112 

"These little animals were numerous". 1 18 

"We saw racks in Minnesota made by the Indians". 122 

"The roots of the lilies are much relished as a food by the 

moose." 130 S 



Illustrations — Con tin tied. 

Facing Page 

"We have seen the moose standing out in the bays of the 
lakes." 136 

"White Pine—What of Our Future Supply?" 142 

"He motors over the fairly good roads of the northern 

frontier." 148 

"Friends whom he had known in the city who are ready 
to welcome him." 154 

"He camps by the roadside on the shore of a lake". 160 

The midday luncheon is welcomed by the automobile 
tourists. 166 

"Here he brings his family and friends to fish". 172 

"Prepare their fish just caught for the meal, by the open 
camp fire." 178 

"He continues his journey ... to the very source 
of the Mississippi River". 182 



THE PIONEER WOODSMAN AS HE IS 

RELATED TO LUMBERING IN 

THE NORTHWEST. 



By GEORGE HENRY 'WARREN 




CHAPTER I. 

Sowing the Germ That I 
Knew Not. 

"This superficial tale is but a preface of her worthy praise." 

ARLY environment sometimes paints 
colors on the canvas of one's later 
life. 

Fifty years ago in western New 
York, there were thousands of acres of valu- 
able timber. The country was well watered, 
and, on some of the streams, mills and factories 
had sprung into existence. On one of these 
were three sawmills of one upright saw each, 
and all did custom sawing. 

My father was a manufacturer, especially of 
carriages, wagons, and sleighs. There were 
no factories then engaged in making spokes, 
felloes, whiffletrees, bent carriage poles, thills 

13 



or shafts, and bent runners for cutters and 
sleighs. These all had to be made at the shop 
where the cutter, wagon, or carriage was being 
built. Consequently the manufacturer was 
obliged to provide himself with seasoned 
planks and boards of the various kinds of wood 
that entered into the construction of each ve- 
hicle. Trips were made to the woods to ex- 
amine trees of birch, maple, oak, ash, beech, 
hickory, rock elm, butternut, basswood, white- 
wood, and sometimes hemlock and pine. The 
timber desired having been selected, the trees 
were converted into logs which in turn were 
taken to the custom mill and sawed into such 
dimensions required, as far as was possible at 
that period to have done at these rather primi- 
tive sawmills. Beyond this the resawing was 
done at the shop. 

Thus, almost unconsciously, at an early age, 
by reason of the assistance rendered to my 
father in selecting and securing this manufac- 
tured lumber from the tree in the forest to the 
sawed product of the mill, I became familiar 
with the names and the textures of many kinds 
of woods, the knowledge of which stood me in 
good turn in later years. 



14 




CHAPTER II. 

Preparations for the Wilds 
of Wisconsin. 

N the city of Detroit, early in June, 
1871, was gathered a group of four 
veteran woodsmen of the lumber- 
men's craft, and two raw recruits, 
one, a student fresh from his father's law office 
in Bay City, and the other, myself, whose fron- 
tier experiences were yet to be gained. 

A contract, by William S. Patrick of Bay 
City, the principal of this group, had been made 
with Henry W. Sage, of Brooklyn, New York, 
to select and to secure by purchase from the 
United States and from the state of Wisconsin, 
valuable pine lands believed to be located in 
the wilds of northern Wisconsin. Tents, blan- 
kets, axes, extra clothing, cooking utensils, 
compasses, and other surveying implements 
were ordered, and soon the party was ready for 
the start. 

At that time no passable roads penetrated 
the northern woods of Wisconsin from the 
south. The country to be examined for avail- 
able pine lands at the commencement of our 
work was tributary to the head waters of the 

15 



Flambeau River. To reach this point in the 
forest it was thought best to enter the woods 
from the south shore of Lake Superior. Also, 
the United States land office controlling a part 
of this territory, was located at Bayfield, Wis- 
consin, and at that office must be selected such 
tov/nship plats as would be needed in the ex- 
amining of lands in that portion of the Bayfield 
Land District. 

The quickest line of transit at that date was 
by railroad to Chicago, and thence to St. Paul 
over the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Rail- 
way, crossing the Mississippi River at Prairie 
du Chien, Wisconsin, to McGregor, Iowa, and 
thence north to St. Paul. There was no other 
railroad then completed from Chicago to St. 
Paul. The only railroad from St. Paul to Lake 
Superior was the St. Paul and Duluth. From 
Duluth, passage was taken by steamer to Bay- 
field. Township plats were here obtained from 
the government land office. Provisions of 
pork, flour, beans, coffee, rice, sugar, baking 
powder, dried apples, pepper and salt, tobacco, 
etc., for one month's living in the woods for 
nine men, were bought and put into cloth sacks. 
Our original number of six men was here aug- 
mented by three half-breed Indians of the Bad 
River Indian Reservation, who were hired as 

16 




Ths^fl 



packers and guides over a trail to be followed 
to the Flambeau Indian Reservation. A Lake 
Superior fisherman was then engaged to take 
the party and its outfit in his sailing boat from 
Bayfield to the mouth of Montreal River, which 
is the boundary between Wisconsin and Michi- 
gan. The distance was about thirty-five miles. 



17 




CHAPTER III. 

Entering the Wilds of 
Wisconsin. 

HE party disembarked at a sand 
beach, but the sailboat drew too 
much water to permit a close land- 
ing. Here it was that the two ten- 
derfeet got their first experience with Lake 
Superior's cold water, since all were obliged 
to climb or jump overboard into three feet of 
the almost icy water, and to carry on heads and 
shoulders portions of the luggage to the dry 
land. Here was to begin the first night of my 
camp life. Dry wood was sought, and camp 
fires were kindled to be used, first, to dry the 
wet clothing, and second, to cook the food for 
the first out-of-door supper. 

To avoid mosquitoes, orders were given to 
prepare beds for the night on the sand beach 
away from the friendly tall trees that stood 
near by. One mattress served for the whole 
party and consisted of as level a strip of the 
sandy shore as could be selected. Promise of 
fair weather rendered unnecessary the raising 
of tents which were made to serve as so much 

18 



thickness to keep the body from contact with 
the sand. 

That night the stars shone brightly above 
the sleepers' faces, the waters of Superior broke 
gently along the beach, and the tall pines lent 
their first lullaby to willingly listening ears. 

"The waves have a story to tell me, 

As I lie on the lonely beach; 
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops, 

The wind has a lesson to teach; 
But the stars sing an anthem of glory 

I cannot put into speech. 



They sing of the Mighty Master, 

Of the loom His fingers span, 
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole, 

And weft in the wondrous plan." 

The next morning broke bright and clear, 
and the sun sent a sheen upon the dimpled 
waters of old Superior that gave us a touch of 
regret at the parting of the ways ; for the mem- 
bers, one by one, after a well relished break- 
fast, shouldered their packs and fell into single 
file behind the Indian guide who led the way to 
the trail through the woods, forty miles long, 
to the Flambeau Reservation. 

Two days and the morning of the third 
brought the party, footsore in new boots and 
eaten by mosquitoes, to the end of the trail. 
Now, lakes must be crossed, and the Flambeau 
River navigated for many days. In the Indian 

19 



village were many wigwams, occupied by the 
usually large families of two or three genera- 
tions of bucks, squaws, children, from the eldest 
down to the liquid-nosed papoose, and their 
numerous dogs that never fail to announce the 
approach of "kitchimokoman," the white man. 

Some of the old men were building birch 
canoes, and many birch crafts of different ages 
and of previous service were to be seen in the 
camp. From among them, enough were 
bought to carry all of the men of the party and 
their outfits. The last canoe bought was a 
three-man canoe, which leaked and must be 
"pitched" before it could be used. 

At this point let it be explained that every 
woodsman, trapper, pioneer, settler, or camper 
who depends upon a birch canoe for navigation 
should, and generally does, provide himself 
with a quantity of commercial resin and a fire- 
proof dish in which to melt it. The resin is 
then tempered by adding just enough grease 
to prevent the mixture, when applied to the dry 
surface of a leaky spot on the canoe, and cooled 
in the water of the lake or river at the time of 
using, from cracking by reason of too great 
hardness. The surface must be dry or the 
"pitch" will not adhere firmly to the leaky seam 
or knot in the bark of the canoe. The drying 

20 



is quickly done by holding a live ember or fire- 
brand close to the surface of the wet bark. 

Mr. Patrick had bought the canoes from dif- 
ferent owners and had paid for them all except 
the leaky three-man canoe. It was the prop- 
erty of a fat squaw of uncertain age. The price 
agreed upon for this canoe was twenty dollars. 
Mr. Patrick and the squaw were standing on 
opposite sides of the canoe as Mr. Patrick took 
from his pocket a twenty dollar bill to hand 
her in payment. Just then he discovered that 
the pan of pitch (resin), which had been previ- 
ously placed over the live coals, was on fire. 
He placed the twenty dollar bill on the canoe in 
front of the squaw, and quickly ran to extin- 
guish the fire in the burning pitch. When he 
returned to the canoe, the bill had disappeared, 
and the wise old squaw claimed to know noth- 
ing of its whereabouts. A second twenty dollar 
bill was produced and handed to the squaw, 
when Mr. Patrick became the owner of a forty 
dollar birch canoe. 



21 




CHAPTER IV. 

Surveying and Selecting Gov- 
ernment Timber Lands. 

UR party of land surveyors, or "land 
lookers" as they were often called, 
being thus supplied with water trans- 
ports, proceeded in their canoes a 
short distance down the Flambeau River, 
where the work of selecting government or 
state lands timbered with pine trees was to 
begin. 

The questions have been so often asked, 
"How do you know where you are when in the 
dense forest away from all roads and trails, and 
many miles from any human habitation?", 
"How can you tell one tract of land from an- 
other tract?", and "How can you tell what land 
belongs to the United States and what to the 
State?", that it seems desirable to try to make 
these points clear to the reader. 

The Continental Congress, through its com- 
mittee appointed expressly for the work, inaug- 
urated the present system of survey of the pub- 
lic lands in 1784. For the purposes of this ex- 
planation it will be sufficient to recite that the 
system consists of parallel lines six miles apart 

22 



running north and south, designated as "range 
lines"; also of other parallel lines, six miles 
apart running east and west, designated as 
"township lines". Any six miles square bound- 
ed by four of these lines constitutes a "town- 
ship". The territory within these two range 
lines and two township lines is subdivided into 
"sections", each one mile square, by running 
five parallel lines north and south across the 
township, each one mile from its nearest par- 
allel line, and, in like manner, by running five 
other parallel lines east and west across the 
township from the east range line to the west 
range line, each line one mile from its nearest 
parallel line. In this manner, the township is 
subdivided into thirty-six sections each one 
mile square. The four township corners are 
marked by posts, squared at the upper end, and 
marked on the four sides by the proper letters 
and figures cut into the four flat faces by 
"marking irons", each flat surface facing the 
township for which it is marked. 

In addition, one tree in each of the four town- 
ship corners is blazed (a smooth surface ex- 
posed by chopping through the bark into the 
wood) on the side of the tree facing the stake, 
and the same letters and figures as are on the 
nearest face of the stake are marked thereon. 

23 



These letters and figures give the number of 
the township, range and section touching that 
corner. On another blaze below the first, and 
near the ground, are marked the letters "B T", 
meaning "bearing tree". 

The surveyor writes in his field book the kind 
and diameter of tree, the distance and direction 
of each bearing tree from the corner post, and 
these notes of the surveyor are recorded in the 
United States land office at Washington. 

Even if the stake and three of the bearing 
trees should be destroyed, so that but one tree 
be left, with a copy of the notes, one could re- 
locate the township corner. 

The section corners within the township are 
marked in a similar manner. 

Midway between adjacent section corners is 
located a "quarter corner", on the line between 
the two adjacent sections. This is marked by 
a post blazed fiat on opposite sides and marked 
"% S". There are also two "witness trees" or 
bearing trees marked 54 S. 

By running straight lines through a section, 
east and west and north and south, connecting 
the quarter corners, the section of six hundred 
and forty acres may be divided into four quar- 
ter sections of one hundred and sixty acres 

24 



each. These may in turn be divided into four 
similar shaped quarters of forty acres each 
called "forties", which constitute the smallest 
regular government subdivisions, except frac- 
tional acreages caused by lakes and rivers 
which may cut out part of what might other- 
wise have been a forty. In such cases the gov- 
ernment surveyor "meanders" or measures the 
winding courses, and the fractional forties thus 
measured are marked with the number of acres 
each contains. Each is called a "lot" and is 
given a number. These lots are noted and 
numbered on the surveyor's map or plat which 
is later recorded. 

The subdivision of the mile square section is 
the work of the land looker, as the government 
ceases its work when the exterior lines are run. 

On the township plat which one buys at the 
local United States land office, are designated 
by some character, the lands belonging to the 
United States, and, by a different character, 
the lands owned by the State. 

The country presented an unbroken forest 
of the various kinds of trees and underbrush 
indigenous to this northern climate. The deer, 
bear, lynx, porcupine, and wolf were the right- 
ful and principal occupants. Crossing occa- 
sionally, the trail of the first named, served 

25 



only to remind us of our complete isolation 
from the outside, busy world. 

The provisions yet remaining were sufficient 
to feed our party for less than three weeks. In 
the meantime two of the Indians had gone 
down the river in a canoe with Mr. Patrick to 
the mouth of the Flambeau, to await the arrival 
of fresh supplies which he was to send up to 
that point from Eau Claire by team. The ex- 
perienced and skilled woodsmen had divided 
the working force into small crews, which 
began subdividing the sections within the 
townships where there were government or 
state lands, to ascertain whether there were 
any forty acre tracts that contained enough 
valuable pine to make the land profitable to 
purchase at the land offices. Two thousand 
acres were thus selected during the first cruise, 
but, on our agent reaching the land office where 
the lands had to be entered, only twelve hun- 
dred acres were still vacant (unentered), other 
land lookers having preceded our representa- 
tive and arrived first at the land office with 
eight hundred acres of the same descriptions 
as our own. 

As there were many land lookers at this time 
in the woods, all anxious to buy the good pine 

26 



lands from the government and the state, con- 
flicts like the above were not unusual. 

Through a misunderstanding of orders, our 
working party, now nearly out of everything 
to eat, assembled at The Forks, a point forty- 
five miles above the mouth of the Flambeau, 
and waited for the Indians to bring up fresh 
supplies. They did not come, and, after wait- 
ing three days, while each man subsisted on 
rations of three small baking powder biscuits 
per day, all hands pushed down to the mouth 
of the river where the Indians were awaiting 
us with plenty of raw materials, some of which 
were soon converted into cooked food of which 
all partook most heartily. 

Corrected plats, showing the unentered lands 
of each township which we were directed to ex- 
amine, were sent to us. 



27 




CHAPTER V. 

Gaining Experience — 
Getting Wet. 

OME field experience which I had ac- 
quired in surveying when a sopho- 
more in college, assisted me greatly 
in quickly learning how to subdivide 
the sections, while my knowledge of timber 
gained at an early age, when assisting my 
father in choosing trees in the forest suitable 
for his uses as a manufacturer, aided me great- 
ly in judging the quality and quantity of the 
pine timber growing in the greater forests of 
the Northwest. 

Freshly equipped with provisions, and with 
plats corrected up to date, we returned to the 
deep woods. There we divided into parties of 
only two — the land looker and his assistant. 
The latter's duty was chiefly to help carry the 
supplies of uncooked foods, blankets, tent, etc., 
to pitch tent at night, and, ordinarily, to do the 
most of the cooking, though seldom all of it. 
On some days much good vacant (unentered) 
pine was found, and on other days none at all. 
Several miles of woods were at times labori- 
ously passed through, without seeing any tim- 

28 




''The almost saucy, yet sociable 
red squirrel". (Page 48.) 



ber worth entering (buying). Some portions 
would consist of hardwood ridges of maple, 
oak, elm ; some of poplar, birch, basswood ; oth- 
ers of long stretches of tamarack and spruce 
swamps, sections of which would be almost 
without wooded growth, so marshy and wet 
that the moss-covered bottom would scarcely 
support our weight, encumbered as we always 
were by pack sacks upon our backs, which 
weighed when starting as much as sixty pounds 
and sometimes more. Their weight diminished 
daily as we cooked and ate from our store 
which they contained. 

Windfalls — places where cyclones or hurri- 
canes had passed — were sometimes encoun- 
tered. The cyclones left the trees twisted and 
broken, their trunks and branches pointing in 
various directions ; the hurricanes generally left 
the trees tipped partly or entirely to the 
ground, their roots turned up and their trunks 
pointing quite uniformly in the same relative 
direction. The getting through, over, under, 
and beyond these places, which vary from a few 
rods to a possible mile across, especially in win- 
ter when the mantle of snow hides the pitfalls 
and screens the rotten trunks and limbs from 
view, tries the courage, patience, and endurance 
of the woodsman. All of the time he must use 

29 



his compass and keep his true direction as well 
as measure the distance, otherwise he would 
not know where he was located. Without this 
knowledge his work could not proceed. 

Sometimes we would come to a natural 
meadow grown up with alders, around the 
borders of which stood much young poplar. 
A stream of water flowed through the meadow, 
and the beavers had discovered that it was emi- 
nently fitted, if not designed, for their necessi- 
ties. Accordingly, they had selected an advan- 
tageous spot where nature had kindly thrown 
up a bank of earth on each side and drawn the 
ends down comparatively near to the stream. 
Small trees were near by, and these they had 
cut down, and then cut into such lengths as 
were right, in their judgment, for constructing 
a water-tight dam across the narrow channel 
between the two opposite banks of earth. The 
flow of water being thus checked by the beaver 
dam, the water set back and overflowed the 
meadow to its remotest confines, and even sub- 
merged some of the trunks of the trees to per- 
haps a depth of two feet. Out further in the 
meadow and amongst the alders where had 
flowed the natural stream, the water in the 
pond was much deeper. 

These ponds sometimes lay directly across 

30 



the line of our survey and inconvenienced us 
greatly. We disliked to make "offsets" in our 
lines and thus go around the dam, for the trav- 
eling in such places was usually very slow and 
tedious. The saving of time is always impor- 
tant to the land hunter, since he must carry his 
provisions, and wishes to accomplish all that 
is possible before the last day's rations are 
reached. It was not strange, then, if we first 
tried the depth of the water in the pond by 
wading and feeling our way. While we could 
keep our pack sacks from becoming wet, we 
continued to wade toward the opposite shore, 
meantime remembering or keeping in sight 
some object on the opposite shore, in the direct 
course we must travel, which we had located 
by means of our compass before entering the 
water. Sometimes a retreat had to be made 
by reason of too great depth of water. During 
the summer months we did not mind simply 
getting wet clothes by wading ; but once in the 
fall just before ice had formed, this chilly prop- 
osition of wading across, was undertaken vol- 
untarily, and was only one of many uncomfort- 
able things that entered into the woodsman's 
life. 

Subjected thus to much inconvenience and 
discomfort by those valuable little animals, we 

31 



could but admire their wisdom in choosing 
places for their subaqueous homes. They feed 
upon the bark of the alder, the poplar, the birch r 
and of some other trees. These grew where 
they constructed their dam and along the mar- 
gin of the pond of water thus formed. They 
cut down these trees by gnawing entirely 
around their trunks, then they cut off branches 
and sections of the trunks of the trees, and 
drew them into their houses under the ice. 
Most trees cut by the beaver are of small diam- 
eter. I once measured one beaver stump and 
found it to be fourteen inches in diameter. I 
still have in my possession a section of a white 
cedar stump measuring seventeen inches in cir- 
cumference that had been gnawed off by beav- 
ers. It is the only cedar tree I have ever known 
to have been cut down by these wise little crea- 
tures. 



32 




CHAPTER VI. 

A Birthday Supper. 

LAMBEAU Farm was located on the 
right bank of Chippewa River oppo- 
site the mouth of Flambeau River. 
There old man Butler kept a ranch 
for the especial accommodation of lumbermen 
and land hunters, who included nearly every- 
one who came that way. It was at the end of 
the wagon road leading from Chippewa Falls 
and from other civilized places. Canoes, dug- 
outs, batteaus — all started from Butler's ranch 
at Flambeau Farm for operations up the Flam- 
beau and its tributaries, or for either up or 
down the Chippewa and its branches. 

One rainy afternoon in October our party of 
three started from Butler's ranch in a dugout 
(a long, narrow canoe hewn out of a pine tree), 
to pole down the Chippewa River to the mouth 
of Jump River, a distance of about ten miles. 
Notwithstanding the rain, everything went 
smoothly for the first hour, when, without 
warning, the bow of the canoe struck the edge 
of a sand bar which caused the tottlish craft to 
tip. The man in the stern jumped overboard to 
save it from capsizing, expecting to strike his 

33 



feet on the sand bar, but, in the meantime, the 
frail craft had drifted away from the bar, and 
we were floating over deep water which re- 
sulted in our comrade's disappearing under the 
surface. He soon rose hatless, and with a few 
strokes swam to where he seized the stern of 
the boat to which he was obliged to cling until 
we could paddle to the shore, as any attempt 
on his part to have climbed in would have re- 
sulted in capsizing the boat, and would have 
cost us all of our supplies. 

We built a fire, and partly dried his wet gar- 
ments, after which we proceeded on our jour- 
ney. Entering the mouth of Jump River, we 
flushed a small flock of wild geese, one of which 
we shot and gathered into our dugout. A little 
farther on, we were fortunate in bringing down 
a fine mallard. By this time the snow had be- 
gun to fall very rapidly, so that when we had 
reached a suitable place to camp for the night, 
the snow was fully three inches deep. Here, 
near the bank of the river, we found an unoccu- 
pied claim shanty built of logs, and containing 
a very serviceable fireplace. We took posses- 
sion of it for the night, in consequence of which 
it was unnecessary to pitch our tents. We be- 
gan the usual preparations for our evening meal 
and for comfortable beds upon which to lie. 

34 




•g Qh 



X 



The latter were soon prepared by going out- 
side into a thicket of balsam fir trees, felling a 
few with our axes, and breaking off the soft, 
springy boughs which were stacked in bunches, 
carried into camp, and spread in the conven- 
ient bunks to constitute the mattresses over 
which the blankets were later laid. 

While thus busy, an Indian hunter clad in a 
buckskin suit came down the trail by the river 
bank, bringing with him a saddle of venison. 
Owing to the Indian's natural fondness for 
pork, it was very easy to exchange a small piece 
of the latter for some nice venison steaks. I 
remember that because of the wet condition of 
the snow, the Indian's buckskin pants had be- 
come saturated with water, causing them to 
elongate to such an extent that he was literally 
walking on the bottom ends of them. His wig- 
wam was not far down the river, to which point 
he soon repaired. Then the cook made a short 
calculation of the menu he would serve us for 
our supper after the very disagreeable experi- 
ences of travel during the day. He decided to 
broil the mallard and cook some venison steak. 
Besides this, he boiled rice, some potatoes, 
some dried peaches, and baked a few tins of 
baking powder biscuits. 

The land hunter's or surveyor's outfit of 

35 



cooking utensils invariably includes a nest of 
tin pails or kettles of different sizes fitted one 
within the other, and sufficient in number to 
supply the needs of the camp ; also a tin baker, 
so constructed that when set up before an open 
fire, it is a tilted "V" shaped trough of sufficient 
length to place within it a good sized baking 
tin, placed horizontally and supported midway 
between the two sides of the "V" shaped baker, 
so that the fire is reflected on the bright tin 
equally above the baking pan and below it. 

The snow had ceased falling, and, by build- 
ing a rousing camp fire outside of the claim 
shanty, we were soon able to dry our clothing. 
Having partaken of a sumptuous meal, we 
"rolled in", contented and happy, for a night's 
rest. To me, this 14th day of October was a 
red letter day, and in memory ever since has 
been because it was the birthday of my then 
fiance, who, not many years subsequent, be- 
came and ever since has remained my faithful 
and loving wife. 

The second and final trip of that season in 
open water was made several weeks later when 
we again poled up the Chippewa River in a 
dugout, taking with us our supplies for the 
cruise in the forest. 

The current in that part of the river was so 

36 



swift, not infrequently forming rapids, that we 
were obliged always to use long poles made 
from small spruce trees from which the bark 
had been removed, and an iron spike fastened 
at one end to aid in securing a hold when 
pushed down among the rocks. The water was 
so nearly at the freezing point that small flakes 
of ice were floating, and the atmosphere was so 
cold, that, as the pole was lifted from the water, 
ice would form on it unless the pole at each 
stroke was reversed, thus allowing the film of 
ice formed on the pole to be thawed when im- 
mersed in the slightly warmer water beneath. 
The day spent in this manner was attended 
with very great discomfort, and when night 
came, each man found himself tired and hun- 
gry, and glad that the day had come to an end. 
We camped that night at a French-Canadian 
logging camp. Our party was too fatigued to 
pitch its own tents and prepare its own meal, 
and gladly accepted the foreman's hospitality 
at the rate of two dollars a day each, for some 
of his fat pork, pea soup, and fairly good bread. 

On the morning following, we found the ice 
had so formed in the river that further journey- 
ing in the dugout was impossible, so the latter 
was pulled up on shore, covered with some 
brush, and abandoned, at least for the winter, 

37 



and, as it proved in this instance, for always, 
so far as it concerned our party. We finished 
this cruise on foot, and returned about two 
weeks later to Eau Claire. 

There were not many men living on govern- 
ment lands in that part of Wisconsin. Those 
who had taken claims and were living on them 
depended on their rifles for all of their fresh 
meat. Some of them made a practice of plac- 
ing "set guns" pointing across deer trails. One 
end of a strong cord was first fastened to a 
tree, or to a stake driven into the ground some 
distance from the deer trail. The cord was 
then carried across the trail which was in the 
snow, for a distance of one hundred feet or less. 
Here, the gun was set firmly, pointing directly 
in line with the cord or string. The barrel of 
the gun was sighted at such an elevation as to 
send the bullet, when fired, across the deer trail 
at a height from the trail sufficient to pene- 
trate the body of the deer. The string was then 
carried around some stationary object and fas- 
tened to the trigger of the gun, the hammer of 
which had been raised. The pressure of the 
deer's body or legs against the string would be 
pretty sure to discharge the gun, thus causing 
the innocent and unsuspecting deer to shoot 
itself. 

38 



While running a compass line one day, we 
discovered, just ahead of us, a cord or string at 
right angles to our line of travel. I stopped 
immediately, while my companion, Tom Car- 
ney, followed the cord to its end which he 
found fastened to the trigger of a rifle. He 
carefully cut the cord, raised the rifle to his 
shoulder, and fired it into the air. He next 
broke the gun over the roots of a tree. Fur- 
ther examination showed that the cord was 
stretched across a deer trail which we would 
have reached in a minute more. 

With the return of winter the Sage-Patrick 
contract was about completed. 



39 



CHAPTER VII. 

A New Contract — Obstacles. 

"To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she 

speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware." 

Y life, up to the time of my contract 
with Mr. Patrick to go with him into 
the wilds of Wisconsin as an appren- 
ticed land hunter and timber exam- 
iner, had been spent on the farm, in my father's 
shop, at school and college, and in teaching. 
The change of occupation and manner of living 
will therefore be seen to have been radical. In 
six months of contact with nature, I had been 
born into a new life, a life of initiative, of dar- 
ing, and of hardships, insuring health and in- 
spiring hope of financial success in a way hon- 
orable and helpful. I loved the forms of nature 
all about me, untouched by the hand of man. 
I therefore sought for and found an associate 
with capital sufficient to permit me to continue 
in the same line of work. The late Robert B. 

40 






c a. 



>» -. 

h -a 

C &> 



C OT 

C 3 

a o 

£ 5? 

> g 



Langdon then became my partner, and this re- 
lationship was most pleasantly continued to the 
end of Mr. Langdon's life. 

Late in December, 1871, my first trip under 
the new contract for securing pine timber, was 
undertaken. The ice in the rivers and lakes 
had now become firm and safe for travel 
thereon. Considerable snow had already 
fallen, and the roads were heavy in conse- 
quence. 

Our work, as planned, lay many miles up the 
Chippewa River. In order to reach the desired 
locality with sufficient supplies to enable us to 
be gone a month or six weeks, it was necessary 
to take them on a toboggan made expressly 
for the uses of this proposed trip. Four men 
were needed to push and pull the load. After a 
week of hard labor, our party arrived at the 
point where the work of surveying the lands 
was to begin. A place to camp was chosen in 
the thick woods not far from the river bank, 
where water would be near by and convenient 
for the use of the camp. A small, but strong 
warehouse of logs was first constructed, in 
which to store the supplies not necessary for 
immediate use. 

Having thus secured the supplies for future 
use from the reach of any wild beasts roaming 

41 



in the forests, we put enough of them into our 
pack sacks to last for a ten days' absence from 
our storehouse camp. We were about to start, 
when Abbot, one of our axmen, in chopping a 
stick of wood, had the misfortune to send the 
sharp blade of the ax into his foot, deep to the 
bone. The gash was an ugly one and at once 
disabled him for further usefulness on this trip. 
The man must be taken out of the woods where 
his foot could receive proper care. How was 
this to be accomplished? Two men alone could 
possibly have hauled him on the toboggan. 
The distance to the nearest habitation where a 
team of horses could be obtained was seventy- 
five miles. There was but one tent in the outfit 
and not sufficient blankets to permit of divid- 
ing our party of four men. It seemed, there- 
fore, that there was nothing possible to do but 
for the whole party to retrace its steps to the 
point where it had been obliged to leave the 
team behind. The wound in Abbot's foot was 
cleansed and some balsam having been gath- 
ered from the fir trees, the same was laid on a 
clean piece of white cotton cloth, which, used 
as a bandage, was placed over the wound and 
made secure. The wound having been thus 
protected, Abbot was placed on the toboggan 

42 



and hauled to the ranch seventy-five miles 
down the river. 

Cruising in the woods is always expensive, 
even when everything moves on smoothly and 
without accident. The men's wages are the 
highest paid for common labor, while the 
wages of compassmen are much more. The 
wages of the man of experience and knowledge 
sufficient to conduct a survey, as well as to 
judge correctly of the quality and quantity of 
timber on each subdivision of land selected for 
purchase, are from seven dollars to ten dollars 
a day. He must determine the feasibility of 
bringing the pine logs to water sufficient to 
float them when cut, and the best and shortest 
routes for the logging roads to reach the banks 
of the rivers, or possibly the lakes where the 
logs are unloaded; and, in these modern days 
of building logging railroads, he must also lo- 
cate the lines of the railroads and determine 
their grades. At the time above alluded to, no 
logging railroads were in existence, and that 
part of the expense did not have to be borne. 
The trip proved to be a very expensive one, and 
there had not been time before the accident to 
choose one forty-acre tract of land for entry. 

After arriving at Eau Claire where the land 
office was located, and being delayed some 

43 



days by other business, we found on going to 
the land office, that many entries had just been 
made of lands within the townships in which 
we had planned to do our work, when the acci- 
dent to Abbot occurred. This fact necessitated 
the choosing of other townships in which to go 
to search for vacant lands on our next trip. 

Having acquired from the land office the 
necessary plats, and having secured a new 
stock of provisions, we started again to pene- 
trate another part of the pine woods. This 
trip occupied several weeks in which we were 
more than ordinarily successful in finding de- 
sirable lands, and we hastened to Eau Claire 
in order that we might secure these by pur- 
chase at the land office. 
( Rumors had been afloat for some time pre- 
vious, that there were irregularities in the con- 
duct of the office at Eau Claire. These rumors 
had grown until action was taken by the gen- 
eral land office at Washington, resulting in the 
temporary closing of the Eau Claire land of- 
fice for the purpose, as reported, of examining 
the books of that office. 

Many crews of men came out of the woods 
in the days that followed, with minutes or 
descriptions of lands which they desired to 
enter, each in turn to find the land office closed 

44 




oO. % ^m77To^ 



\ 



against them. In this dilemma, advice was 
taken as to what course to pursue. After hav- 
ing taken counsel, I, as well as several others, 
sent my minutes, together with the necessary 
cash, to the general land office at Washington, 
with application to have the same entered for 
patents. Our minutes and our money, how- 
ever, were returned to us from Washington 
with the information that the entry could not 
be thus made, and that public notice would be 
given of the future day when the land of- 
fice at Eau Claire would reopen for the transac- 
tion of the government's business. All land 
hunters of the Eau Claire district were there- 
fore obliged to suspend operations until the 
time of the reopening of the land office. This 
occurred on the first of May following. 

I was there early and in line to enter the of- 
fice when its doors should be open at nine 
o'clock in the morning, and reached the desk 
simultaneously with the first few to arrive. All 
were told that in due time, possibly later in 
that day, they could call for their duplicate re- 
ceipts of such lands as they were able to secure. 
There was present that morning, a man by the 
name of Gilmore, from Washington, who, so 
far as my knowledge goes, had never before 
been seen at the Eau Claire land office. My 

45 



descriptions which I had applied for at the 
land office on that morning had all been en- 
tered by the man from Washington, resulting 
in the loss of all of my work from January until 
May. I was not alone in this unlooked for ex- 
perience, as I was informed by others that they 
had shared the same fate. 

Thus baffled, and believing that there was 
no prospect of fair treatment in that land office 
district, I determined to change my seat of op- 
erations and to go into some other district. I 
did so, going next onto the waters of the Wis- 
consin River, the United States land office for 
which district, was then located at Stevens 
Point. Here I remained for many months, 
operating with a good degree of success, and 
found the land office most honorably and fairly 
conducted for all. 

The registrar of the land office was Horace 
Alban, and the receiver was David Quaw. It 
was always a pleasure to do business with these 
two gentlemen. 



46 




CHAPTER VIII. 

A Few Experiences in the New 
and More Prosperous Field. 

HE life of the land hunter is at nearly 
all times a strenuous one. He daily 
experiences hardships such as work- 
ing his way up rivers with many 
swift waters, and crossing lakes in birch-bark 
canoes, in wind storms and in rain; fording 
streams when he has no boat and when the 
banks are too far apart to make a temporary 
bridge by felling trees across the channel; 
building rafts to cross rivers and lakes ; climb- 
ing through windfalls; crossing miles of swamp 
where the bog bottom will scarcely support his 
weight, and where, when night overtakes him 
he must temporize a bed of poles on which to 
lay his weary body to protect it from the wet 
beneath him; and traveling sometimes all day 
in an open and burnt country with his bed and 
board upon his back, the sun's hot rays press- 
ing like a heavy weight upon his head, while 
myriads of black flies swarm about him and 
attack every exposed inch of his skin, even 
penetrating through the hair of his head. These 
are a few of his experiences, and, if these had 

47 



not their offsets at certain times, his life would 
become indeed unbearable. His health, how- 
ever, and his appetite are generally as good as 
are enjoyed by any class of the human family. 
Possessing these advantages gives him much 
buoyancy of spirit, and, when a good piece of 
country in the timber is encountered, he is 
quick to forget the trials and the hardships of 
the hour before, and to enjoy the improved 
prospects. 

There is doubt whether or not anything 
finer enters into the joy of living than being 
in the solitude of the great unbroken forest, 
surrounded by magnificent, tall, straight, beau- 
tiful pine trees, on a day when the sun is cast- 
ing shadows through their waving tops, listen- 
ing to the whisperings, formed almost into 
words, of the needle-like fingers of their leafy 
boughs, to the warbling of the songsters, and 
to the chirping of the almost saucy, yet so- 
ciable red squirrel who is sure to let one know 
that he has invaded his dominion. Such days, 
with such scenes and emotions, do come in the 
life of the woodsman, the land hunter, who is 
alone in the forest, except that if he be at all 
sentimental, he approaches nearer to the Great 
Creator than at almost any other time in his 
life's experiences. Those who have read the 

48 



books of John Borroughs, John Muir, or Ernest 
Thompson Seton, may appreciate somewhat 
the joy that comes to the woodsman in his soli- 
tude, if he be a lover of nature. 

Those only, who have been through the ex- 
perience, can fully realize how anxious the 
land looker is to secure the descriptions of val- 
uable lands that he has found when out on one 
of his cruises, for he knows full well that it is 
probable that he is not the only man who is in 
the woods at that time, for the same objects as 
his own. Sometimes, but rarely, two such men 
may meet in the forest while at their work. 
When this occurs, it is a courteous meeting, 
but attended with much concealed embarrass- 
ment, for each knows that the other has found 
him out, and, if either is in possession of a val- 
uable lot of minutes which he hopes to secure 
when he reaches the land office, he assumes 
that the other is probably in possession of the 
same descriptions, or, at least, a part of them. 
It then becomes a question which one shall out- 
wit or outtravel the other, from that moment, 
in a race to the land office where his minutes 
must be entered, and to the victor belong the 
spoils, which means in this instance, to the one 
who is first there to apply for the entry of his 
land descriptions. 

49 



While on one of these cruises on a tributary 
of the Wisconsin River, with one man only for 
help and companion, I had left my man, 
Charlie, on the section line with the two pack 
sacks, while I had gone into the interior of the 
section, to survey some of its forties, and to 
make an estimate of the feet of pine timber 
standing on each forty. It was in midsummer 
and in a beautiful piece of forest. Thrifty pine 
trees were growing amongst the hard woods 
of maple, birch, and rock elm. Having com- 
pleted my work in the interior of the section, 
and having returned, as I believed, to a point 
within a hundred yards of where Charlie was, 
I gave the woodsman's call, then listened for 
Charlie's answer, in order that I might go di- 
rectly to the point whence it should come. On 
reaching Charlie, I picked up my pack and 
started following the section line. We had 
traveled less than a quarter of a mile on the 
line, when I saw on the ground, a pigeon 
stripped of its feathers. I picked up the bird 
and found that its body was warm. Imme- 
diately I knew that other land lookers were in 
the same field and had undoubtedly been rest- 
ing on that section line at the time I had called 
for Charlie, and they, hearing our voices, had 

50 



hastily picked up their packs and started on 
their way out. 

There was much pine timber in this town- 
ship that yet belonged to the government and 
to the state of Wisconsin. I, at this time, had 
descriptions of more than four thousand acres 
of these lands which I was anxious to buy. 
My interest and anxiety, therefore, became in- 
tense when I knew that my presence had been 
discovered by the parties who had so uninten- 
tionally left that bird on their trail. There 
were no railroads in that part of the country 
at that time, and Stevens Point, the location 
of the government land office, lay more than 
sixty-five miles south of where we then were. 
Twenty-five miles of this distance was mostly 
through the woods and must be traveled on 
foot. It was then late in the afternoon and 
neither party could make progress after dark. 
The route through the woods led through a 
swamp, and, upon reaching it, the tracks of 
two men were plainly to be seen in the moss, 
and in places in the wet ground. One man 
wore heavy boots, with the soles well driven 
with hobnails, which left their imprints in the 
moist soil. Coming to a trail that led off into 
a small settlement, we saw the tracks of one of 
the two men following that trail. The tracks 

51 



of the man with the hobnails kept directly on 
in the course leading to the nearest highway 
that would take him to Wausau, a thriving 
lumber town, forty miles distant from Stevens 
Point. We reached this road at about three 
o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. We 
called at the first house approached, and asked 
the woman if she could give us some bread 
and milk, and, being answered in the affirma- 
tive, we sat down for a rest, and inquired of 
her if she had seen a woodsman pass. She 
replied that she had, and that he had left there 
within an hour of the time of our arrival. The 
tracks of the boots with the hobnails could be 
seen occasionally along the road, and, knowing 
that the stage, the only public conveyance from 
Wausau to Stevens Point, was not due to leave 
Wausau for Stevens Point until four o'clock 
the next morning, we had no further anxiety 
about overtaking the woodsman who had left 
there an hour in advance, since we reasoned 
that he would probably take the stage at its 
usual hour of leaving, the next day. 

From that time on, the journey was leisurely 
made, and we entered Wausau at a late hour, 
when most of the laboring community had re- 
tired for the night. Having gone to my accus- 
tomed hotel, and changed my clothes, I next 

52 



walked over to a livery stable and hired a team 
which I drove to Stevens Point during the 
night, arriving there in time for breakfast. I 
then went to the home of the land officer before 
eating my breakfast, told him that I wished 
to make some entries that morning, and asked 
him at what hour the land office would be open ; 
and, seeing that my time agreed with that of 
the land officer, told him that I would be there 
promptly at nine o'clock, the legal hour for 
opening the office. I made entry of the list 
of lands belonging to the United States gov- 
ernment, and was told to return at eleven 
o'clock to compare the duplicate receipts with 
my application to enter the lands. While I was 
thus engaged, the stage from Wausau arrived, 
and a man came into the land office, wearing 
a pair of boots with hobnails that looked very 
much the size of the tracks that I had been 
previously observing on my way out from the 
woods to Wausau. He immediately asked for 
the township plat which represented the lands 
which I had been so anxious to secure. He 
began reading the descriptions of the lands he 
wished to enter, and, as he read them, I heard 
with much interest, the same descriptions that 
were in my own list, but there were some that 
were different. Whenever a description was 

53 



read that checked with one in my list, the land 
officer replied that those lands were entered. 
This occurred so many times that he soon in- 
quired when the lands had been entered. He 
was told, "At nine o'clock this morning." In 
his perplexity he had also read some of the 
descriptions that belonged to the state of Wis- 
consin and which had to be purchased at the 
land office at Madison, the capital of the state. 

"Well," he remarked, "this is hard luck, but 
I may secure my state land descriptions." 

I always kept a balance of money with the 
state treasurer at Madison, with which to pay 
for lands whenever I should send a list by mail 
or otherwise, when I did not care to go per- 
sonally with the descriptions. 

The man having left the land office, I re- 
paired immediately to the telegraph office and 
wired the descriptions of the lands I wished 
to enter, to the chief clerk of the land office 
at Madison, authorizing him to draw on my 
account with the state treasurer, to pay for 
the same. The train left Stevens Point that 
afternoon for Madison, and both interested 
parties were passengers. Arriving at the land 
office, I found the lands telegraphed for, to 
have been duly secured. 

This instance is given to show by how 

54 



slender a thread a matter of great interest 
sometimes hangs. Had the pigeon not been 
left on the section line, or had it not been dis- 
covered by the competing land hunter, the 
man with the hobnails in his boots would have 
been the victor, and his would have been the 
joy of having won that which he had striven 
hard to attain. 



55 




CHAPTER IX. 

Tracing Gentlemen Timber 

Thieves— Getting Wet — 

Fawn. 

have said that the country tributary 
to the waters of the Wisconsin 
River constituted a good field for 
the selection of valuable government 
pine-timbered lands. It is equally true that it 
was a country where the custom had grown 
among lumbermen to enter a few forties of 
government land, sufficient at least to make 
a show of owning a tract of timber on which 
to conduct a winter's operation of logging, and 
then to cut the timber from adjacent or near 
by forty-acre tracts of land yet belonging to 
the government. 

This method of trespassing upon the tim- 
ber not owned by the operator, but being the 
property of the United States, was carried on 
to a greater extent there than in any other 
section of the state in which I was familiar 
with the methods and practices of logging pine 
timber. Many logging jobbers having formed 
this habit of helping themselves to govern- 

56 



ment timber, found it difficult, after the gov- 
ernment lands had been entered by private 
purchase of others than themselves, to dis- 
continue their practice of taking timber that 
was not their own. Reforms of such habits 
do not come voluntarily nor easily, as a rule, 
but generally under some sort of pressure. 

In the years following my purchase of con- 
siderable tracts of timber on these waters, I 
found it necessary, annually, to make a trip 
into the country where our timber lands were 
situated, to ascertain whether or not there had 
been near-by logging camps during the pre- 
ceding winter, and if so, to carefully run out 
the lines around our own timber, to determine 
whether or not trespass had been committed on 
any of them. In many instances I found that 
this was the fact. One spring I found a very 
considerable number of the best pine trees cut 
from the interior of forty acres of excellent 
timber, so that the selling value of the whole 
tract was injured far more than the full value 
of the amount of timber that had been unlaw- 
fully cut and hauled away. The trespass had 
been committed by a man prominent in the 
community and well-known among the lum- 
bermen of the Wisconsin River. The late Gust 
Wilson of Wisconsin, a fine man, a lawyer of 

57 



much experience in lumber cases in that state, 
and whose counsel was considered of a high 
order, was retained to bring suit to recover 
the value of the timber trespassed. Not only 
that, but, annoyed at the boldness of the tres- 
pass, I wished also to have him prosecuted 
criminally for theft. Mr. Wilson said in reply 
to the request, "Now, don't try that. All of 
those fellows have had 'some of them hams/ 
and you can't get a jury in all that country 
that will bring you in a verdict of guilty, no 
matter how great and strong your evidence 
may be." There was nothing left to do under 
Mr. Wilson's advice but to cool off, keep smil- 
ing, and collect the best price for the stumpage 
taken (not stolen), so as to be polite to the 
gentlemanly wrongdoer. 

One spring, accompanied by Mr. W. B. 
Buckingham, cashier of one of the national 
banks at Stevens Point, who also owned in- 
terests in valuable pine timber lands adjacent 
to, or near by those in which I owned interests, 
I went into the countries of the Spirit and 
Willow Rivers. The snow was melting and 
the waters nearly rilled the banks of the re- 
spective streams. Wishing to cross the Spirit 
River, we found a point where an island oc- 
cupied the near center of the stream, on which 

58 



was a little standing timber. A tree was felled, 
the top of which landed on the island. Having 
crossed on the tree to the island, we felled an- 
other tree which reached from the island to the 
farther shore. It was not large in diameter, 
and, under the weight of Mr. Buckingham, 
who first proceeded, it swayed until he lost 
his balance and fell into the water and was 
obliged to swim to the opposite shore. I was 
more fortunate in this instance, and stayed on 
the tree until I reached the shore. 

Swimming in ice water is never found com- 
fortable, and we hurried to a close at hand, 
deserted logging camp, where, fortunately, we 
found a large heating stove set up and ready 
for use, and near by a fine pile of dry wood 
for the stove, which had been left over from 
the recent winter's operations of logging. In 
a few minutes, a rousing fire was made, and, 
after removing his garments and wringing 
them as dry as possible, we hung them on lines 
about the stove and quickly dried them and 
made them ready for use. This was necessary, 
as no change of clothing had been provided 
for this intended short excursion into the 
woods. 

By the time our work was finished, the snow 
had mostly melted away. The ice was all out 

59 



of the rivers, and we found ourselves one morn- 
ing on the banks of the Tomahawk River, won- 
dering how we were to cross it, if possible, 
without the delay of constructing a raft suf- 
ficiently large to carry us. The tote-road lead- 
ing to Merrill, which we wished to follow, was 
on the opposite side of the Tomahawk from 
where we approached it. We finally discov- 
ered an old birch canoe hidden in the brush. 
It was leaky and in very bad repair, so we set 
ourselves to work gathering pitch from the 
ends of a pile of freshly cut pine logs lying 
on the bank of the river, banked there to be 
pushed into the stream by the log drivers. 
This we put into a dish with a little grease 
and boiled until it was of the right consistency 
to stick to the bark of the canoe. Patches of 
cloth were laid over the riven places in the 
bark, and pitched until the boat was made 
waterproof — for temporary use at least. 

With our small belongings, we got into the 
canoe and started down the Tomahawk, in- 
tending to stay in it as long as it would hold 
together and take us on our journey, saving 
us that much walking. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, for us, we soon came to a long strip of 
rapids with which we were not familiar. Se- 
lecting what we believed to be the best water, 

60 



we permitted the frail craft to float into the 
rapids, and our fast journey down stream had 
begun almost before we realized the fact. All 
went well until nearly to the lower end of the 
rapids, when the old canoe struck a sharp rock 
slightly hidden under the water, and split in 
two. Partly by swimming and partly by wad- 
ing, we reached the coveted shore, wetter and 
wiser than when an hour before we had taken 
an old canoe that was not our own, in which 
to cross the stream, instead of spending con- 
siderably more time to construct a raft on 
which we could safely and with dry clothes, 
have reached the opposite shore. The usual 
woodsman's process of drying clothes was 
again gone through with, since it was too cold, 
at that season of the year, to travel all day in 
our wet garments. 

One early summer day while traveling 
through a part of this same country, watered 
by the Willow River, my companion and I 
stopped in a majestic forest of towering white 
pine trees, interspersed with the more spread- 
ing hemlocks. It was nearing twelve o'clock, 
and we were both hungry. While my com- 
panion was collecting wood for a fire, I went 
in search of water with which to make a pail 
of hot coffee. Returning, I climbed over a 

61 



large hemlock tree that had fallen, probably, 
from old age. There, nestled in the moss and 
leaves, lay a spotted fawn. It made no effort 
to get up and run from me, so I carefully ap- 
proached it and gently caressed it. Then I 
lifted the handsome little creature, with its 
great, trusting brown eyes, into my arms, and 
carried it near to our camp fire. While my 
helper was preparing dinner, I fondled this 
beautiful infant of the forest that yet knew 
no fear. I sweetened some water to which I 
added just a sprinkle of meal, then fed it 
from a spoon to this confiding baby animal. 
After this, when I moved, the trusting little 
creature followed me. When it came time for 
us to resume our work I carried my little newly 
found friend back to the spot where its mother 
had probably left it and put it down in its 
mossy, leafy bed, and, carefully climbing over 
the log, left it to be better cared for than it 
was possible for me to do. 



62 




CHAPTER X. 

Does It Pay to Rest on Sunday? 

"With what a feeling deep 
Does Nature speak to us! Oh, how divine 
The flame that glows on her eternal shrine! 
What knowledge can we reap 
From her great pages if we read aright! 
Through her God shows His wisdom and His might." 

T was in the summer of 1872, while 
I was at the United States land office 
at Bayfield, Wisconsin, and was hav- 
ing some township plats corrected 
previous to going into the woods in that dis- 
trict to hunt for pine timber, that John Buffalo, 
chief of the Red Cliff band of Chippewa In- 
dians, a friend of the United States land 
officers, made his quiet appearance at the land 
office. I had asked where I could find a reli- 
able, trustworthy, and capable man to accom- 
pany me on this cruise, planned to cover a 
period of not less than two weeks. Captain 
Wing, receiver of the land office, asked the 
Indian chief, "John, wouldn't you like to earn 
a little money by going into the woods to help 
this man for a couple of weeks or more?" To 
this the chief gave his consent with the usual 
Indian "Ugh." 

63 



During that day provisions were bought and 
placed in individual cloth sacks. A strong 
rowboat was secured and the journey begun. 
Camp was made the first night on one of the 
Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. The day 
following, our destination was reached at the 
mouth of the Cranberry River, where our boat 
was carefully cached. 

It rained for several days, in consequence 
of which the underbrush was wet most of the 
time, and in passing through it we became wet 
to the skin. Before leaving home I had bought 
for use on the trip what I believed to be a fine 
pair of corduroy trousers. They looked well, 
and the brush did not cling to them, a desirable 
condition when traveling through thickets 
often encountered in the woods. It rained the 
first day that we were out. At night we pitched 
our tent, prepared the evening meal, and at 
an early hour retired. On retiring, it is usually 
the custom for men camping, to remove their 
outer garments and put them out of the way 
at one side of the tent. Both were very tired 
and soon fell asleep. I was awakened by a 
very disagreeable odor within the tent and 
walked out into the fresh air. Returning, I lay 
down and remained thus until early daylight, 
experiencing only a disturbed sleep during the 

64 



night. My feeling was that I had chosen an 
undesirable bedfellow, and, as later develop- 
ments proved, it would have been reasonable 
if the Indian chief had arrived at the same con- 
clusion. 

During the next day it again rained. After 
the rain the sun came out bright and warm, 
causing a rapid evaporation to take place on 
our wet garments. It was under these circum- 
stances that the discovery was made that the 
very disagreeable odor experienced during the 
preceding night was again present, and was 
emanating from the wet coloring matter that 
had been used in the manufacture of the cor- 
duroy trousers. The best possible defense — 
which I felt it was necessary to make — was to 
call attention to the fact that the strong odor 
was coming forth from the corduroy cloth. 
On reaching camp that evening, the new cordu- 
roys were hung out on the limb of a tree where 
they were last seen by our small camping party. 

It is not customary for land hunters to work 
less on Sunday than on other days, for the 
principal reason that all of their provisions 
must be carried with them on their backs, and, 
that by resting on Sunday, the provisions 
would disappear as rapidly, or more so, than 
they would if work continued on that day. 

65 



However, toward the end of our trip which 
had been a very successful one in point of find- 
ing desirable government timber lands to enter, 
we decided that we would rest on the next day, 
v/hich was Sunday, just previous to our taking 
our boat to make our return trip on Lake Su- 
perior waters to the land office at Bayfield. As 
a precaution, lest other land lookers should dis- 
cover our presence, our camping ground was 
selected in the interior of the section. We had 
eaten our dinner, and were enjoying a siesta 
when we heard voices. Listening, we heard men 
discussing the most direct line to take to reach 
their boat, hidden somewhere on the shore of 
the lake. Time sufficient was given to allow 
them to get so far in our advance, that any 
movement on our part would not be heard by 
them. Soon, thereafter, we packed our tent 
and all of our belongings and started for our 
boat. We did not reach it until nine o'clock 
the following morning. We were then forty- 
five miles from Bayfield by water. 

Soon after we had rowed out into the lake, 
a northeasterly wind began to blow and did 
not cease blowing during the entire day. The 
sandstone bluffs around that portion of the 
south shore of Lake Superior in many places 
are nearly vertical and rise to very consider- 

66 



able heights, preventing any possible way of 
escape from the water's edge for miles in ex- 
tent. It was with the greatest effort that we, 
pulling with all our might, could keep the boat 
out into the lake, so powerful was the wind, 
and so increasingly great were the waves. Be- 
sides, it was not possible to take a rest from 
our labors for, the moment we ceased rowing, 
our boat began rapidly drifting toward the 
rocks on the south shore. Thus we labored 
until near the middle of the afternoon, when 
we got under cover of the first of the friendly 
Apostle Islands. After resting awhile, before 
dark we were able to reach the Red Cliff Indian 
Agency, where we spent the night at the chief's 
wigwam. 

The next morning early, we resumed our 
boat and rowed into Bayfield, arriving in time 
to be present at the opening of the land office. 
With much anxiety, I made application to 
enter the vacant lands that had been selected 
on this trip, fearing that the men whom we 
had overheard talking in the woods two days 
before, might have arrived in advance of me 
and have secured at least a part of the same 
descriptions. With great satisfaction, how- 
ever, I found the lands to be still vacant, and 

67 



all of the minutes chosen while on this strenu- 
ous cruise, I bought. 

A little before noon of this same day, two 
well-known land hunters from Chippewa Falls 
came in, in their boat, off the lake, and, on 
going to the land office, applied to enter nearly 
all of the lands which I had secured a few hours 
before. 

The moralist might point with justification 
to the fact that had we not rested on Sunday, 
more than likely we should not have known 
of the presence of any competitors in the field, 
and should not, therefore, have worked so 
many long hours in our boat on that windy 
day, nor should we likely have reached the land 
office in advance of the two men who arrived 
there only a few hours later than ourselves. 

"By the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
By the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, 
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. 
Dark behind it rose the forest, 
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, 
Rose the firs with cones upon them; 
Bright before it beat the water, 
Beat the clear and sunny water, 
Beat the shining Big-Sea- Water." 



68 




CHAPTER XI. 

Indian Traits — Dog Team. 

HIEF JOHN BUFFALO was a su- 
perior Indian, always pleasant, com- 
panionable, and willing to do a full 
day's work. He seemed to prefer 
the society of the white men, and therefore 
spent much of his time with them. The Indian 
grows to manhood schooled in superstition. 
I recall that during the first long trip from the 
mouth of Montreal River to the Flambeau 
Reservation, and thence to the mouth of the 
Flambeau River, on one evening the party 
camped near by a natural meadow where the 
grass had ripened and was dry. Our three 
Indians went out with their knives, to gather 
armfuls of the grass to spread in our tents to 
soften our beds for the night. While thus 
engaged, Antoine, one of the Indians, encoun- 
tered a blow-snake. This reptile, when de- 
fending itself, emits an odor which is sicken- 
ing, but among white men is not considered 
very dangerous. There was no question but 
that Antoine was made sick for that evening 
by the snake, which had not touched him but 
had been very near to him. Ed and Frank, 

69 



the other two Indians of the party, told us that 
evening that it was too bad, for Antoine surely 
would die within the year as a result of his 
having gotten this odor from the blow-snake. 
Two years subsequently, I landed at Bayfield 
from a Lake Superior steamer, and one of the 
first persons I met on the dock was Antoine, 
who looked as hale and hearty and well as 
he was before his experience with the blow- 
snake. On congratulating him for his victory 
over the dire calamity predicted, because of 
his encounter two years previous with the 
blow-snake, he was considerably embarrassed, 
but made no explanation why he was yet alive. 

During the first half of the seventies, there 
was no railroad to the shores of Lake Superior 
in Bayfield County. In January, 1876, it was 
necessary for me to reach Bayfield on im- 
portant business. A very poor road had been 
cut through the woods from Old Superior to 
Bayfield, crossing the streams running north 
into Lake Superior. United States mail was 
carried on toboggans drawn by dogs, and con- 
ducted by Indian runners. 

The snow was deep, and no trail was broken 
on the morning that I arrived at Superior 
hoping to secure some kind of conveyance to 
take me through to Bayfield, but I found no 

70 




:■ 



a- >> 



one who would volunteer to make the journey. 
In this dilemma I sought the owners of dog 
teams, and succeeded in purchasing two rather 
small dogs that were young and full of life, 
as well as well trained. These I hitched to 
a toboggan and started on my journey of 
ninety-five miles to Bayfield. The morning 
was mostly gone when the start was made, 
and that night was spent in a small cabin on 
the Brule River. The cabin had been erected 
for the use of the Indian mail carriers, and was 
unoccupied. It contained a stove, however, 
and wood was handy outside. The next morn- 
ing an early start was made, and our train 
reached Bayfield, as I remember, about one 
o'clock in the afternoon. 

The return journey was made by the same 
route. I had become acquainted with the 
smart dog team, so that the return journey 
was rather enjoyable than otherwise. I took 
advantage of the down grades to get a little 
rest by throwing myself flat upon the tobog- 
gan, dismounting as soon as the up grades 
were reached. I had become greatly attached 
to the dogs, therefore I put them in the express 
car, on my return from Duluth, and brought 
them with me to Minneapolis. The thought 
to do this was prompted by thinking of the 

71 



little daughter at home, then two and one-half 
years old, and of her baby brother, yet in arms. 
A suitable sled was at once ordered made, with 
a seat for little sister. To the sled, the dogs 
were harnessed abreast, and the dogs and child 
were never happier than when out on the 
streets for exercise. 

There were only two miles of street car track 
in Minneapolis at that time, and that little 
track was remote from the family home. The 
city was then small. Passing teams on the 
streets were infrequent, so that it was perfectly 
safe for her to be out in her tiny conveyance, 
accompanied always either by her father or 
by her admiring uncle. 



Tl 




CHAPTER XII. 

Wolves — Log Riding. 

ANY experiences of meeting or see- 
ing the more dangerous of the wild 
animals have been related by men 
whose occupation as woodsmen has 
made it necessary at times to go for days, un- 
accompanied into the woods, and miles distant 
from any human habitation. Personal experi- 
ence leads me to believe that man is safe, nearly 
always, except when such animals are suffer- 
ing from hunger. 

Early one spring, while the snow was yet 
deep in the woods, I was scaling some trespass 
of timber that lay about three miles away from 
my headquarters camp. In going to my work, 
mornings, I passed along a trail near to which, 
in the deep snow, was the carcass of a horse 
which had belonged to the owner of a near-by 
lumber camp. I noticed, one morning, that 
it had been visited during the night by a pack 
of wolves that had fed upon it and had gone 
away, using the trail for a short distance and 
then leaving it, their tracks disappearing into 
the unbroken forest. The following morning, 
having gotten an early start, on passing this 

73 



same place, I saw the wolves leaving their feed- 
ing place and disappearing by the same route 
as the tracks indicated on the preceding morn- 
ing. The animals seemed to be as anxious to 
get out of my sight, as I was willing to have 
them. Had it not been for their full stomachs, 
their actions, likely, would have been different. 

Returning, on a subsequent day just before 
nightfall, tired from a long day's work, and, 
probably, because of the late hour, thinking 
of my near by neighbors, the wolves, I com- 
mitted an act that came near costing me my 
life. The ice had gone out of the streams, and 
the spring drive of logs was at its height. To 
reach camp by the usual way, it was necessary 
to follow up the stream one mile and cross on 
a dam that had been constructed by the lum- 
bermen to hold back water to use in driving 
logs out of this stream, which at this point was 
about two hundred and fifty feet wide. The 
gates were open, and the water was running 
high within the banks of the stream. Seeing, 
in the eddy close to the bank of the river, a 
large log that would scale at least one thousand 
feet board measure, I was seized with the idea 
that I could, with the assistance of a pole, step 
onto that log, push it out from shore, and guide 
it across the stream to the opposite shore. It 

74 



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T3 S 



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was a log that had been skidded to the bank 
of the river and rolled in. On such logs, the 
bark on the under side is always removed to 
reduce the amount of friction produced by one 
end of the log dragging, while it is being hauled 
to the water's edge. The "log driver" belongs 
to a class of men that has produced many 
heroes, and some of their exploits are among 
the most thrilling recorded among the exi- 
gencies of a hazardous occupation. I never 
was of that class, and was almost entirely with- 
out experience in trying to ride logs in open 
water. I had pushed the log out into the 
stream some distance and all was lovely, as 
every minute it was approaching nearer to 
the opposite shore. Suddenly it entered the 
current of the river which quickly revolved the 
log under my feet, bringing the peeled side 
uppermost, at which instance I was dropped 
into the stream. The first thing I did on rising 
to the surface, was to swim for my hat, which 
had been pulled off as I sank under the water. 
Having secured it, I commenced swimming 
for the opposite shore. My clothing was heavy 
and grew more so as it became soaked with 
water, so that by the time I had attained the 
further shore — in the meantime watching con- 
stantly to see that no floating log bumped me, 

75 



thereby rendering me unconscious — I was 
nearly exhausted. 

During these years from 1871 to 1874, the 
woods of Wisconsin were thoroughly traveled 
over by land hunters, and nearly all of the 
desirable timber was entered at the respective 
land offices, so that there remained no further 
field for exploit. A new field was therefore 
looked for, and this I found in Minnesota. 




CHAPTER XIII. 

Entering Minnesota, the 
New Field. 

N the summer of 1874, I went to the 
head waters of the Big Fork River 
with a party of hardy frontiersmen, 
in search of a section of country 
which was as yet unsurveyed by the United 
States government, and which should contain 
a valuable body of pine timber. Having found 
such a tract of land, we made arrangements 
through the surveyor-general's office, then 
located in St. Paul, to have the land surveyed. 
The contract for the survey was let by the 
United States government to Mr. Fendall G. 
Winston of Minneapolis. 

The logging operations on the Mississippi 
River in Minnesota at this period extended 
from a short distance above Princeton on the 
Rum River, one of the tributaries of the Mis- 
sissippi River, to a little above Grand Rapids. 
To reach Grand Rapids from Minneapolis, the 
traveled route was by way of the St. Paul and 
Duluth railroad to Northern Pacific Junction, 
thence, over the Northern Pacific Railroad, 
west to Aitkin. From this point the steamboat 

77 



Pokegama plied the Mississippi to Grand 
Rapids, the head of navigation at that time. 
For many years this steamboat was owned 
and operated by Captain Houghton, almost 
wholly in the interest of the lumber trade. 
Later, Captain Fred W. Bonnes became its 
owner. Subsequently, the old Pokegama 
burned, when Captain Bonnes built a new boat, 
using the machinery of the Pokegama, and 
naming it Aitkin City. At a still later period 
he built the larger steamer, Andy Gibson. 

In those days, the lumber-jack was a very 
interesting type of man. Men from Maine 
and New Brunswick were numerous. Scotch- 
men, Irish-Americans, and French-Canadians 
constituted a considerable portion of all the 
labor that went to the logging camps of Min- 
nesota. As early as the month of July, they 
began their exodus from Minneapolis to the 
woods for the purpose of building new camps, 
cutting the wild grass that grew along the 
natural meadows, and making it into hay for 
the winter's use for oxen and horses. Some 
of these men worked at the sawmills in sum- 
mer, but there was not employment for all at 
this work, and many spent their time in idle- 
ness and not infrequently in drunken carousal. 
On leaving the city for the logging camps, they 

78 



were pretty sure to start out, each with one 
or two bottles of whiskey stored away in his 
tussock, which was ordinarily a two bushel, 
seamless sack, with a piece of small rope tied 
from one of its lower corners to the upper end 
of the sack. In this were placed all of the 
lumber-jack's belongings, except what were 
carried in his pockets, including one or two 
additional bottles of whiskey. Not all of the 
lumber-jacks drank whiskey, but this was the 
habit of very many of them. By the time the 
train had arrived at Northern Pacific Junction, 
where a change of cars was made, and where 
the arrival of the Northern Pacific train from 
Duluth, west bound, was awaited, many of our 
lumber-jacks were well under the influence of 
John Barleycorn. Disputes would frequently 
arise while waiting for the train. These would 
be settled by fist fights between the disputants, 
their comrades standing about to see that each 
man had fair play. 

On one of our trips to the pine forests north 
of Grand Rapids, we arrived at Aitkin on a 
train loaded with this class of men, as well as 
their bosses, and proprietors of the lumber 
camps. Aitkin at that time was not much 
more than a railroad station for the transfer 
of the lumbermen and merchandise to the 

79 



steamboat. A few men had preempted lands 
from the government and had made their 
homes where now is the city of Aitkin. The 
late Warren Potter was one of them. He kept 
a large store which was well stocked with 
lumbermen's supplies, and which was the 
rendezvous for the lumbermen. His pre- 
emption claim was only a short distance in the 
woods from his store. He had been East to 
buy goods and had returned by train that day. 
He found that his preemption claim had been 
"jumped" by one, Nat Tibbetts, whom he found 
occupying the Potter cabin. An altercation 
took place between the two men, resulting in 
Tibbetts blacking Potter's eye. The only repre- 
sentative of the law was a justice of the peace, 
a man whose name was Williams. Before him, 
Potter swore out a warrant for the arrest of 
Tibbetts, charging Tibbetts with assault with 
intent to do bodily harm. Potter asked me to 
act as his attorney to prosecute his case. This 
honor was politely declined, and I assured him 
that he would find a better man for the occasion 
in the person of S. S. Brown, the well-known 
log jobber, who was in town. 

Mr. Brown having consented to act in the 
interest of Mr. Potter, and Mr. Tibbetts having 
secured some other layman to defend his case, 

80 



all parties repaired, as I remember, to an un- 
occupied building which was temporarily used 
as a court of justice. As almost the entire 
community that evening was a floating popula- 
tion of lumbermen of various sorts, waiting 
for an opportunity to start up the river on the 
steamboat the following day, it will readily 
be seen by the reader that this occasion was 
one of unusual interest and bade fair to furnish 
an interesting entertainment for a part of the 
long evening. 

Tibbetts demanded a jury trial. The jury 
was chosen, and the prosecution opened the 
case by putting on the stand, a witness who 
had seen the encounter, and who proved to be 
a good witness for Mr. Potter. The case pro- 
ceeded until the evidence was nearly all pre- 
sented. At this juncture, in the back end of 
the improvised court room, a tall lumber-jack 
who was leaning against the wall, and who was 
considerably the worse for whiskey, cried out, 
"Your honor! your honor! I object to these 
proceedings." Everything was still for a mo- 
ment, and all eyes turned toward the half drunk 
lumber-jack. Justice Williams attempted to 
proceed, when the lumber-jack repeated his 
calls and his demands to be heard. Every one 
present knew that any attempt on the part of 

81 



the constable to quiet this man would have re- 
sulted in starting a general fight, where there 
were so many who were under the influence of 
liquor. Some one, therefore, said to the justice, 
"Your honor, you had better hear the man's 
objections." Justice Williams then said, "You 
may state your objections, sir." The lumber- 
jack replied, "I object, your honor, because that 
jury has not been sworn." This was true. The 
jury was then sworn, and the trial of the case 
was begun anew. The witnesses having again 
given their evidence under oath, the case was 
soon argued by the improvised lawyers. The 
justice gave a short charge to the jury, and, 
without leaving their seats, and while the spec- 
tators waited, they notified the justice that 
they had agreed upon a verdict of guilty. The 
justice fined Mr. Tibbetts one dollar, and this 
frontier court of justice adjourned. 

The question of the ownership of the claim 
was not before the court. My recollection, 
however, concerning it, is that Mr. Potter ever 
after had peaceful possession of the land. 

The ride up the Mississippi to Grand Rapids 
on the steamer Pokegama, which tied up each 
night, occupied two days and a half. The dis- 
tance was one hundred and ninety-five miles. 
The steamer was crowded, and men slept 

82 




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everywhere on the deck, on their blankets or 
without them, as best fitted their condition. 
Whiskey and cards were plentiful. The table 
was well supplied with good things to eat. 
Grand Rapids at that time consisted of a 
steamboat landing, a warehouse, and a ranch 
or stopping place kept by Low Seavey, whose 
wife was a half-breed. These were on the left 
bank of the river just below the falls or rapids. 
On the opposite side of the river was a small 
store, a new enterprise, and owned by a man 
whose name was Knox. 

I met Mr. Winston and his assistant sur- 
veyors at Grand Rapids about the middle of 
August. There were no roads leading into 
the country that we were to survey, and, as 
our work would extend nearly through the 
winter, it was necessary to get our supplies 
in sufficient quantity to last for our entire cam- 
paign, and take them near to our work. This 
was accomplished by taking them in canoes 
and boats of various sorts. Our first water 
route took us up the Mississippi River, into 
Lake Winnibigoshish, and from that lake on 
its northeasterly shore, we went into Cut-foot 
Sioux, or Keeskeesdaypon Lake. From this 
point we were obliged to make a four mile 
portage into the Big Fork River, crossing the 

83 



Winnibigoshish Indian Reservation. From an 
Indian encampment on this reservation, at the 
southwest shore of Bow String Lake, we hired 
some Indians to help pack our supplies across 
the four mile portage. Before half of our sup- 
plies had been carried across the portage, the 
Indian chief sent word to us by one of his 
braves, that he wished to see us in council and 
forbade our moving any more of our supplies 
until we had counseled with him. Although 
the surveyors were the agents of the United 
States government, for the sake of harmony, 
it was thought best to ascertain at once what 
was uppermost in the chief's mind. 

That evening, a conference was held in the 
wigwam of the chief. First, the chief filled full 
of tobacco, a large, very long stemmed pipe, 
and, having lighted it with a live coal from 
the fire, took the first whiff of smoke; then 
immediately passed it to the nearest one of our 
delegates to his right, and thus the pipe went 
round, until it came back to the chief, before 
anything had been said. The chief then began 
a long recital, telling us that the great father 
would protect them in their rights to the ex- 
clusive use of these lands. The chief said that 
he was averse neither to the white man using 
the trail of his people nor to his using the 

84 



waters of the rivers or lakes within the boun- 
daries of the reservation, but, if he did so, he 
must pay tribute. In answer to his speech, the 
chief surveyor of our party, Fendall G. Win- 
ston, replied that he and his men had been 
sent to survey the lands that belonged to 
the great father; and, that in order to reach 
those lands, it was necessary that his people 
should cross the reservation which the 
great father had granted to his tribe ; neverthe- 
less, that they felt friendly to the Indians ; that 
if they were treated kindly by himself and his 
tribesmen, they should have an opportunity to 
give them considerable work for many days, 
while they were getting their supplies across 
his country to that of the great father, where 
they were going to work during the fall and 
winter; and that they would also make him 
a present of a sack of flour, some pork, some 
tea, and some tobacco. He was told, too, that 
this was not necessary for the great father's 
men to do, but that they were willing to do 
it, provided that this should end all claims of 
every nature of the chief, against any and all 
of the great father's white men, whom he had 
sent into that country to do his work. This 
having been sealed with the chief's emphatic 
"Ugh," he again lighted the pipe, took the first 

85 



whiff of smoke, and passed it around. Each, 
in token of friendship, did as the chief had 
already done. This ended the conference, and 
we were not again questioned as to our rights 
to pass over this long portage trail, which we 
continued to use until our supplies were all in. 
As nearly as I can now recall, our force was 
made up of the following men: Fendall G. 
Winston, in whose name the contract for the 
survey was issued ; Philip B. Winston, brother 
of Fendall G. Winston; Hdye, a young en- 
gineer from the University of Minnesota; 
Brown, civil engineer from Boston; Coe, from 
the Troy Polytechnic School of Engineering; 
Charlie, a half-breed Indian; Franklin, the 
cook; Jim Flemming, Frank Hoyt, Charlie 
Berg, Tom Jenkins, George Fenimore, Tom 
Laughlin, Joe Lyon, Will Brackett, Miller, and 
myself. 

Flemming, poor fellow, was suffering with 
dysentery when he started on the trip. On 
reaching Grand Rapids, he was no better, and 
it was thought best not to take him along to 
the frontier, so he was allowed to go home. 
Miller was not of a peace loving disposition, 
and, having shown this characteristic early, 
was also allowed to leave the party. It was 
best that all weaklings and quarrelsome ones 

86 



should be left behind, because it was easily 
foreseen that when winter closed in upon the 
band of frontiersmen, it would be difficult to 
reach the outer world, and it would be un- 
pleasant to have any in the party that were 
not, in some sense, companionable. 

Considerable time was consumed in getting 
all of our supplies to headquarters camp, which 
consisted of a log cabin. The first misfortune 
that befell any one of our party came to Frank 
Hoyt, who one day cut an ugly gash in the 
calf of his leg with a glancing blow of the ax. 
The cut required stitching, but there was no 
surgeon in the party. Will Brackett, the young- 
est of the party, a brother of George A. 
Brackett, and a student from the university, 
volunteered to sew up the wound. This he did 
with an ordinary needle and a piece of white 
thread. The patient submitted with fortitude 
creditable to an Indian. Some plastic salve 
was put on a cloth and placed over the wound, 
which resulted in its healing too rapidly. Proud 
flesh appeared, and then the wisdom of the 
party was called into requisition, to learn what 
thing or things available could be applied to 
destroy it. Goose quill scrapings were sug- 
gested, there being a few quills in the posses- 
sion of the party. Brackett, however, sug- 

87 



gested the use of some of the cook's baking 
powder, because, he argued, there was suf- 
ficient alum in it to remove the proud flesh 
from the wound. "Dr." Brackett was consid- 
ered authority, and his prescription proved ef- 
fectual. Hoyt was left to guard the provision 
camp against possible visits from the Indians, 
or from bears, which sometimes were known 
to break in and to carry away provisions. 

It is never necessary for surveyors whose 
work is in the timber, nor for timber hunters, 
to carry tent poles, because these are easily 
chosen from among the small trees; yet nine 
of our party one time in October, with the rain 
falling fast and cold, found themselves, at the 
end of the four mile Cut-foot Sioux Portage, 
on a point of land where there were no poles. 
All of the timber of every description had been 
cut down and used by the Indians. The Indian 
chief and several of his family relations lived 
on this point. They had built the house of 
poles and cedar bark, in the shape of a 
rectangle. Its dimensions on the ground were 
about twelve by twenty feet; its walls rose to 
a height of about five feet; and it was covered 
by a hip roof. 

Our party must either obtain shelter under 
this roof or must get into the canoes and 




6 3 



O M 



paddle nearly two miles to find a place where 
it could pitch its tents. At this juncture 
the hospitality of the Indians was demon- 
strated. The chief sent out word that we should 
come into his dwelling and remain for the 
night. The proffer was gladly accepted. When 
we had all assembled, we found within, the 
chief and his squaw, his daughter and her hus- 
band, the hunter, his squaw and two daughters, 
besides our party of nine, making a total of 
seventeen human beings within this small en- 
closure. A small fire occupied a place on the 
ground at the center of the structure, an ample 
opening in the roof having been left for the 
escape of the smoke and live sparks. Indians 
can always teach their white brothers a lesson 
of economy in the use of fuel. They build 
only a small fire, around which, when inside 
their wigwams, they all gather with their 
usually naked feet to the fire. It is a physio- 
logical fact that when one's extremities are 
warm, one's bodily sufferings from cold are at 
their minimum. Our party boiled some rice 
and made a pail of coffee, without causing any 
especial inconvenience to our hosts, and, after 
having satisfied hunger and thirst, the usual 
camp fire smoke of pipes was indulged in, be- 
fore planning for any sleep. Our party had 

89 



been assigned a portion of the space around 
the open fire, and our blankets were brought 
in and spread upon the mats that lay upon 
the earth floor. 

The additional presence of nine Indian dogs 
has not previously been mentioned. Before 
morning, however, they were found to be live 
factors, and should be counted as part of the 
dwellers within the walls of this single room. 
They seemed to be nocturnal in habit, and to 
take an especial delight in crossing and recross- 
ing our feet, or in trying to find especially cozy 
places between our feet and near to the fire, 
where they might curl down for their own 
especial comfort. It was not for us, however, 
to complain, inasmuch as the hospitality that 
had been extended was sincere; and it was to 
be remembered by us that it was in no way 
any advantage to the Indians to have taken 
us in for the night. Therefore, we were truly 
thankful that our copper colored friends had 
once more demonstrated their feelings of hu- 
manity toward their white brothers. They 
had been subjected to more or less inconven- 
ience by our presence, but in no way did they 
make this fact manifest by their actions or by 
their words. The rain continued at intervals 
during the entire night, and it was with a feel- 

90 



ing of real gratitude, as we lay upon the 
ground, and listened to it, that we thought of 
the kindly treatment we were receiving from 
these aborigines. In the morning we offered 
to pay them money for our accommodations, 
but this they declined. They did, however, 
accept some meat and some flour. 

While we were crossing the lake, one day, 
in canoes loaded with supplies of various de- 
scriptions, an amusing, yet rather expensive, 
incident happened in connection with one of 
the canoes. Its occupants were George Feni- 
more, a Mainite Yankee, and Joe Lyon, a 
French-Canadian. Both were good canoe- 
men, but only Fenimore knew how to swim. 
They had become grouchy over some subject 
while crossing the lake, and, as they neared 
the opposite shore from which they had started, 
in some manner which I have never under- 
stood, the canoe was overturned. Little of its 
contents was permanently lost, except one box 
of new axes. The water was about eight feet 
deep under them. Each man grasped an end 
of the overturned canoe, and clung to it. Then 
an argument began between the two dis- 
gruntled men, about getting to shore. Lyon 
wanted Fenimore to let go of the canoe and 
swim ashore; but this, the latter refused to 

91 



do. Finally, after considerable loss of time, 
Joe Lyon, who was nearest to shore, turned his 
body about, with his face toward the shore, 
and, letting go of the canoe, went to the bot- 
tom of the lake and floundered to gain the 
shore. He had only to go a short distance 
before the water became sufficiently shallow 
for his head to appear, but he was winded, and 
thoroughly mad. I have always believed that 
Fenimore purposely overturned the canoe, but 
if so, he never admitted the fact. 

The pine timber lying east of Bow String 
Lake, and included in the survey of 1874 and 
1875, was all tributary to waters running north, 
into the Big Fork River, which empties into 
the Rainy River. Levels were run across from 
Bow String Lake into Cut-foot Sioux River, 
and considerable fall was found. The distance, 
nearly all the way, was over a marsh. It was 
shown that a dam could easily be thrown across 
from bank to bank of the river at the outlet 
of Bow String Lake, and by thus slightly rais- 
ing the water in the lake, plus a little work of 
cleaning out portions of the distance across 
the marsh, from Bow String Lake to Cut-foot 
Sioux, the timber could be driven across and 
into the waters of the Mississippi River. All 
of this engineering was before the advent of 

92 



logging railroads. However, before the timber 
was needed for the Minneapolis market, many 
logging railroads had been built in various 
localities in the northern woods, and their 
practical utility had been demonstrated. When 
the time came for cutting this timber, a logging 
railroad was constructed to reach it; and over 
its tracks, the timber was brought out, thus 
obviating the necessity of empounding the 
waters of Bow String Lake. 




CHAPTER XIV. 

An Evening Guest — Not 
Mother's Bread. 

HAVE previously mentioned the pres- 
ence of nine dogs at an Indian camp, 
where members of our party spent 
a night. One of these animals is de- 
serving of special mention, for the reason that 
he was a stranger among a strange people, and 
he was evidently so against his own choice. 
He had at one time been a fine, large mastiff. 
His history was never learned in full, but from 
an account of the animal, gained by question- 
ing the Indians who had him in captivity, it 
was learned that the dog had belonged at some 
lumber camp. It often happens that the mid- 
day meal for most of the men in a large logging 
crew must be taken out on a sled, usually 
drawn by a single horse, for a distance of not 
infrequently three or four miles from the cook's 
camp. This is the work of the cookee; and, 
at the logging camp where the mastiff had be- 
longed, the animal had been used instead of 
a horse, to pull the load of the midday meal 
out to the men at work. In what manner he 

94 




"The'memorable fire . . . which swept 
Hinckley". (Page 160.) 



had been left behind when the camp broke in 
the spring, was not learned. 

He was about the size of two or three ordi- 
nary Indian dogs, and was correspondingly 
less sprightly in his movements. He was very 
poor when members of our party first saw him. 
Indian dogs never get enough to eat, and this 
poor fellow with his large frame, had the ap- 
pearance of not receiving any more for his 
portion of food than an average Indian dog, 
if as much. He looked as though he were 
hungry, and probably was, every day. The 
particular action that impressed itself upon 
every member of our party, was this animal's 
almost human desire for sympathy that he 
sought from this party of white men, when 
he and they first met at the Indian camp. He 
wagged his tail and passed from one member 
of our party to another, with an expression of 
unusual joy. He rubbed against us and almost 
begged to be caressed. Every man of our 
party pitied him and would gladly have sent 
him out to the white man's country, had it been 
at all practicable to have done so. 

Later in the fall, I was camped for a single 
night, some three hundred yards distant from 
the Indian encampment, on the shore of a lake 
that I must cross the following morning. 

95 



While I was preparing my evening meal, this 
mastiff made his appearance, wagging his tail, 
and wishing by his actions to say, "I am glad 
to see you, and have come to call on you." 
It is the custom of the land hunter, as well 
as other frontiersmen, when paddling his canoe 
across a lake, to throw out a trolling line; and 
not infrequently, in those northern lakes, a 
catch of several fish may thus be made. On 
that day, such had been my experience, and 
I had in my possession, several fine wall-eyed 
pike that I intended to take through to the 
main camp, which I should reach on the follow- 
ing day. I also had a small bag of corn meal, 
which I sometimes used as a substitute for 
oatmeal, in cooking a porridge for my own 
use. While preparing my supper, I took the 
largest kettle, filled it with water, and placed 
it over the fire. I then cut into small pieces, 
a number of the fish, and put them in the kettle 
to boil. Later I added some corn meal and 
cooked all together. When it was sufficiently 
done, I removed one-half of the pail's contents 
and spread it out on a large piece of birch bark 
to cool. When it had cooled sufficiently, I 
invited my welcome guest, the mastiff, to par- 
take of the food. Every mouthful eaten was 
accompanied by a friendly wag of the animal's 

96 



tail. The portion remaining in the pail I hung 
on a limb, high enough up in the tree to be 
out of reach. The dog remained about the 
camp, and when I lay down in my blankets 
for the night, he curled down at my feet and 
there remained until morning. 

While I was preparing my own breakfast, 
I took the pail from the tree and placed it over 
a small fire, that I might give my guest a warm 
breakfast. I spread out on the same birch 
bark, all that remained in the pail, and it was 
eaten to the last morsel by the grateful animal. 

Having placed all my belongings in my birch 
canoe, I pushed out into the lake without the 
dog, who tried hard to follow, and, as the 
canoe went farther from the shore, the home- 
sick animal commenced to whine at his loss 
of companionship. By every means possible 
to a dumb beast, this dog had expressed his 
dislike for his enforced environment and his 
longing to be back with the white man. I 
could not help but believe that the feelings 
expressed by this dog were akin to those of 
many a captive man or woman who had fallen 
into the hands of the aborigines. 

Our frail birch canoes had been abandoned 
as cold weather approached, and we had settled 
down to the work of surveying. Sometimes, 

97 



however, we came to lakes that must be 
crossed. This was accomplished by cutting 
some logs, and making rafts by tying them 
together with withes. Sometimes these rafts 
were found insufficiently buoyant to float 
above water all who got onto them, so that 
when they were pushed along there were no 
visible signs of anything that the men were 
standing on. When on a raft, Hyde was al- 
ways afraid of falling off, and would invariably 
sit down upon it. This subjected him to 
greater discomfort than other members, but 
as it was of his own choosing, no one raised 
any objection. 

One day, several of the party had gone to 
the supply camp to bring back some provisions 
which the cook had asked for. Returning, not 
by any trail, but directly through the unbroken 
forest, we found ourselves in a wet tamarack 
and spruce swamp; and, although we believed 
we were not far from the camp where we had 
left the cook in the morning, we were not cer- 
tain of its exact location. Mr. F. G. Winston 
said he thought he could reach it in a very 
short time, and suggested that we remain 
where we were. He started in what he be- 
lieved to be the direction of the camp, saying 
that he would return in a little while. We 



waited until the shades of night began to fall; 
and yet he did not come. Preparations were 
then made to stay in the swamp all night. The 
ground was wet all around us, nor could we 
see far enough to discern any dry land. We 
commenced cutting down the smaller trees 
that were like poles, and with these poles, con- 
structed a platform of sufficient dimensions to 
afford room for four men to lie down. Then 
another foundation of wet logs was made, on 
which a fire was kindled, and by the fire, we 
baked our bread and fried some bacon, which 
constituted our evening meal. A sack of flour 
was opened, a small place within it hollowed 
out, a little water poured in, and the flour mix- 
ed with the water until a dough was formed. 
Each man was told to provide himself with a 
chip large enough on which to lay the piece 
of dough, which was rolled out by hand, made 
flat, and then, having been placed in a nearly 
upright position against the chip in front of the 
fire, was baked on one side; then turned over 
and baked on the other. In the meantime, each 
man was told to provide himself with a forked 
stick, which he should cut with his jackknife, 
and on it to place his piece of bacon and cook 
it in front of the fire; thus each man became 
his own cook and prepared his own meal. There 

99 



was no baking powder or other ingredient to 
leaven the loaf — not even a pinch of salt to 
flavor it. But the owner of each piece of dough 
was hungry, and, by eating it immediately 
after it was baked and before it got cold, it was 
much better than going without any supper. 
The following morning, the party resumed its 
journey, and met Mr. Winston coming out to 
find it. He had found the cook's camp, but at 
so late an hour that it was not possible for him 
to return that night. 



100 




CHAPTER XV. 

A Hurried Round Trip to Min- 
neapolis — Many Instances. 

FTER leaving Grand Rapids about 
the middle of August, we saw very 
few white men for many months fol- 
lowing. In October, on our survey, 
local attraction was so strong on part of our 
work, that it was necessary to use a solar com- 
pass. This emergency had not been antici- 
pated ; it, therefore, became necessary to go to 
Minneapolis to secure that special instrument. 
Philip B. Winston, afterwards mayor of Min- 
neapolis, and I started in a birch canoe, and in 
it, made the whole distance from our camp on 
Bow String Lake to Aitkin, Minnesota, on the 
Mississippi, the nearest railroad station. We 
were in Minneapolis but two days, when we 
returned, catching the steamer at Aitkin, and 
going up the Mississippi to Grand Rapids, the 
head of navigation for steamboats. 

Captain John Martin of Minneapolis, the 
well-known lumberman and banker, wished to 
return with us for his final fishing trip in open 
water, for that season. He fished successfully 
for a number of days, and, at the end of each 

101 



day, personally prepared and cooked as fine a 
fish chowder as anyone would ever wish to eat. 
On the day of his departure, I took the Captain 
in my canoe, and landed him on the four-mile 
portage with an Indian escort who was to take 
him to Grand Rapids, whence he would return 
by steamer to Aitkin, a station on the line of 
the Northern Pacific Railroad. 

I was left alone in my canoe and must return 
to camp, crossing the open water of Bow String 
Lake. On my arrival at the main lake, the 
wind had increased its velocity, and the white- 
caps were breaking. I hired an Indian, known 
as "the hunter," to help me paddle across the 
lake and up a rapid on a river flowing into Bow 
String, up and over which it was not possible 
for one man to push his canoe alone. 

The annual payment to the Indians by the 
United States government was to occur a few 
days subsequently, at Leach Lake, and the In- 
dians were busy getting ready to leave, to at- 
tend the payment. The hunter's people were 
to start that day, and he seemed to realize when 
half way across the lake, that, owing to our 
slow progress, because of the heavy sea, he 
would be late in returning to his people at 
camp. He said so, and wished to turn back, 
but I told him that he must take me above the 

102 



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o iu 

"- -fi 

CO P 

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. 1) 

c 

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£ c 



rapid, which was my principal object in hiring 
him. After sitting stoically in the bow of the 
canoe for a few moments, he suddenly turned 
about, and, drawing his long knife, said in 
Chippewa, that he must go back. I drew my 
revolver and told him to get down in the canoe 
and paddle, and that if he did not, he would get 
shot. There was no further threat by the In- 
dian, and we made as rapid progress as possible 
over the rapid, landing my canoe — his own 
having been trailed to the foot of the rapid. 
Both stepped ashore. Then he said in Chip- 
pewa, "Me bad Chippewa; white man all 
right" ; and bidding me good-by, hurried off to 
his canoe at the foot of the rapid. 

Once more, during the fall of 1874, I had to 
reckon with this wily Indian, the hunter, as 
will soon appear in this narrative. 

Perhaps the most convenient pack strap used 
by the woodsman when on an all day's tramp, 
is one that is commonly known as the Indian 
pack strap. It consists of a strap of leather 
about three inches wide and about three feet 
long, from each end of which, a tapering piece 
of leather, either sewed or buckled to it, ex- 
tends finally to a narrow point no wider than 
a whip-lash. Each of these added narrow 
strips is from five to six feet in length, so that 

103 



the whole strap is about fourteen feet long 
when straightened out. A blanket or a tent is 
folded into shape, about four feet by six feet. 
This is laid on the ground, and the strap is 
folded double with a spread at the wide part, 
of about three feet, which is the length of the 
wide strap. The narrow ends are then drawn 
straight back over the blanket, across its nar- 
row dimension, leaving the wide strap, which 
in use becomes the head strap, at the outer 
edge of the blanket. Then the blanket is folded 
from each end over the narrow straps, the two 
ends of which project out and beyond the 
blanket at the opposite side from the head 
strap. The articles to be placed within the 
blanket, which generally consist of small sacks 
of beans, flour, pork, sugar, coffee, and wearing 
apparel, and blankets, are then carefully 
stacked upon the blanket, within the spread 
of the two narrow lines of the pack strap. 
When this is done, the blanket is folded over, 
and the two outer edges are brought as near to 
the center of the pile of things to be carried 
within it, as is possible. Then the two taper- 
ing ends of the pack strap are brought up and 
over, to meet the opposite ends of the narrow 
straps, which, as has been explained, are either 
sewed to, or buckled onto the wide head strap. 

104 



Drawing these ends firmly together puckers 
the outer edge of the blanket on either side, 
and draws the blanket completely over the con- 
tents piled in the center, and makes, ordinarily, 
nearly a round bundle. This load, or pack, the 
man then throws over his shoulder, onto his 
back, and brings the wide strap across his fore- 
head, or across his breast, or across the top of 
his head, when he is ready to begin his journey. 
Before he has traveled long with this load, 
which weighs ordinarily from fifty to one hun- 
dred pounds, according to the ability of the 
man to bear the burden, he will be found shift- 
ing that wide strap to any one of the three po- 
sitions named, and will have used all of those 
positions many times before the party as a 
whole, stops for a moment's rest. 

I had taken with me, on going north on this 
long campaign, an extra fine red leather pack 
strap that I had had made to order at a Min- 
neapolis harness shop. I had kept it coiled up, 
and carefully stored in my belongings, waiting 
for an emergency when the more common 
straps would no longer be of service. A num- 
ber of times the Indians had seen this strap 
and had admired it, and, as it later proved, not 
always without envy. 

One day the strap was missing, and I could 

105 



find it, neither by searching, nor by open 
inquiry of my fellow white men, nor of the In- 
dians, whom I occasionally met. On one occa- 
sion, while portaging my canoe to another lake, 
I found several families of Indians camping at 
the end of the portage. Among them was the 
hunter who has been previously mentioned. 
While stopping a moment for a friendly talk 
with the Indians, I saw protruding from under 
the coat of the hunter, nearly two feet of one 
end of my missing pack strap. I knew it so 
well that I was sure that it was no other pack 
strap. Nevertheless, I deliberated slowly what 
action I should take to recover the strap, not 
wishing by any possibility to make a mistake. 
Having surely concluded that the strap was 
mine, and that the hunter had not come into 
possession of it honestly — he having previous- 
ly denied, when questioned, that he knew any- 
thing of the whereabouts of the strap — I de- 
cided upon a course of action. Going up 
quietly behind the hunter, and twisting the end 
of the protruding strap twice around my wrist, 
and grasping it firmly in my hand, I started 
with all my might to run with the strap. The 
effect was to make a temporary top of my 
friend, the hunter, who whirled about until the 
other end of the pack strap was released from 

106 




c CL, 

o * 



his body. It was too good a joke, even for the 
Indians to remain unmoved, and the majority 
of them broke into merriment. The hunter at 
first was disposed to take it seriously but soon 
looked sheepish and ashamed, and tried to 
smile with the rest of his tribe, as well as with 
myself. 

Having wound the strap carefully around my 
own body, and having made sure that the ends 
did not protrude, I bade my friends, including 
the hunter, good day, got into my canoe and 
pushed out into the lake. This proved to be the 
last time I ever saw the hunter, but it was not 
the last time that I ever thought of the inci- 
dent. 

In justice to the Indians as compared with 
white men, I am glad to be able to say, that, 
after mingling with them more or less for 
many years, and becoming sufficiently familiar 
with their language to be able to use it on all 
necessary occasions, I believe that the Indians 
are as honest and as honorable as the men with 
whom they mingle, who have not a copper 
skin. 

Captain Martin was the last white man whom 
any one of our party saw for four months. 
Winter closed in on us before the beginning of 
November. The snow became very deep, so 

107 



that it was absolutely necessary to perform all 
of our work on snowshoes. The winter of 1874 
and 1875 is shown to have been the coldest 
winter in Minnesota, of which there is any rec- 
ord, beginning with 1819 up to, and including, 
1913. 

The party was mostly composed of men who 
had had years of experience on the frontier, 
and who were inured to hardship. With a few, 
however, the experience was entirely new, and, 
except that they were looked after by the more 
hardy, they might have perished. As it was, 
however, not one man became seriously ill at 
any time during this severe winter's campaign. 

All of the principal men of the party wore 
light duck suits, made large enough to admit 
of wearing heavy flannel underwear beneath 
them. Either boot-packs or buckskin mocca- 
sins, inside of which were several pairs of 
woolen socks, composed the footwear. Boot- 
packs or larigans, as they are commonly called 
by the lumber-jack, are tanned in a manner 
that makes them very susceptible to heat, and 
the leather will shrivel quickly if near an open 
fire. It cost one of the party several pairs of 
boot-packs before he could learn to keep suffi- 
ciently far away from the open fire, on return- 
ing to camp from his work. It will be sur- 

108 



mised by the reader that he was one of the in- 
experienced of the party. 

Many incidents, amusing to others, hap- 
pened during the winter to this same man. He 
had started on the trip in the summer months, 
with a supply of shoe blacking and paper col- 
lars. The crossing of one or two portages with 
his loaded pack sack on his back was sufficient 
to convince him that there was no need of 
carrying either shoe blacking or paper collars, 
and they were thrown out to reduce weight. 
Each man carried a hank or skein of thread, a 
paper of needles, and a supply of buttons. Soon 
after winter set in, this man, who might ordi- 
narily be termed a tenderfoot, complained of 
lameness in one of his feet. As the weather 
became more severe, he added from time to 
time, another pair of socks to those he already 
had on, never removing any of previous ser- 
vice. This necessitated, not infrequently, his 
choosing a larger sized boot-pack. Before the 
campaign was over, although he was a man of 
low stature and light weight, his feet presented 
the appearance of being the largest in the 
party. Still he complained of lameness in the 
hollow of his foot, and no relief came until 
March, when the work was completed. Arriv- 
ing once more back in civilization, he removed 

109 



his much accumulated footwear. There, un- 
der this accumulation of socks, and against the 
hollow of his foot, was found his skein of 
thread, the absence of which, from its usual 
place, had necessitated his borrowing, when- 
ever he had need of it, from some one of his 
companions. Before starting out on this cam- 
paign, he had been one of the tidiest of men 
about his personal appearance. 

One evening in midwinter, when sitting 
around the camp fire, by reason of the pile of 
wood for the evening being largely composed 
of dry balsam, we were kept more or less busy, 
extinguishing sparks that are always thrown 
out from this kind of wood when burning. 
Sometimes one would light on the side of the 
tent near by, and unless immediately extin- 
guished, would eat a large hole in the cloth. 
That evening, Fendall G. Winston and I were 
sitting side by side, when we saw a live spark 
more than a quarter of an inch in diameter light 
in the ear of our friend who sat a little way 
from, and in front of us. It did not go out im- 
mediately, neither did it disturb the tranquillity 
of the young man. Mr. Winston and I ex- 
changed glances and smilingly watched the 
ember slowly die. The time to clean up had 
not yet arrived for at least one of the party. 

no 



The compassman's work that winter was 
rendered very laborious from the fact that his 
occupation made it necessary for him, from 
morning until night of every day, to break his 
own path through the untrodden snow, for it 
was he who was locating the line of the survey. 
I was all of the time running lines in the in- 
terior of the sections, following the work of the 
surveyors, and choosing desirable pine timber 
that was found within each section. I had no 
companion in this work, and thus was sep- 
arated most of each day from other members 
of the party, but returned to the same camp at 
night. 

In the morning, each man was furnished by 
the cook, with a cloth sack in which were 
placed one or two or more biscuits, containing 
within, slices of fried bacon and sometimes 
slices of corned beef, also, perhaps, a dough- 
nut or two. This he tied to the belt of his 
jacket on his back and carried until the lunch 
hour. Ordinarily a small fire was then kindled, 
and the luncheon, which generally was frozen, 
thawed out and eaten. Under such mode of 
living, every one returned at night bringing an 
appetite of ample dimensions. 

One of the most acceptable of foods to such 
men at the supper hour was bean soup, of a 

111 



kind and quality such as a cook on the frontier, 
alone, knows how to prepare. Plenty of good 
bread was always in abundance at such time. 
Usually there was also either corned beef or 
boiled pork to be had by those who wished it ; 
generally also boiled rice or apple dumplings, 
besides tea and coffee. 

In a well-regulated camp, where men are liv- 
ing entirely out of doors in tents, a bean hole 
is pretty sure to be demanded. The bean hole 
is prepared by first digging a hole in the 
ground, sufficiently large, not only to make 
room for the pail, but also for several inches of 
live coals with which it must be surrounded. 
After supper is over, the beans are put into a 
large pail made of the best material, with ears 
always riveted on, so that the action of heat 
will not separate any of its parts. The beans 
are first parboiled with a pinch of soda in the 
water. As soon as the skins of the beans be- 
come broken, the water is poured off; then the 
beans are placed in the bean pail, a small quan- 
tity of hot water is added together with a suf- 
ficiently large piece of pork; and, when a tight 
cover has been put on the pail, it is placed in 
the bean hole. The live coals are placed around 
it, until the hole is completely filled and the 
pail entirely covered several inches deep. Then 

112 




'Our camp was made in a fine grove of 
pig-iron Norway". (Page 167.) 



ashes or earth are put on the top of it all, to 
exclude the air. Thus the pail remains all 
night, and, in the morning when the cook calls 
the men to breakfast, the beans, thoroughly 
cooked and steaming, are served hot and fur- 
nish an acceptable foundation for the arduous 
day's work about to begin. 

The work of the frontiersman is more or less 
hazardous in its nature, and yet bad accidents 
are rare. Occasionally a man is struck by a 
falling limb, or he may be cut by the glancing 
blow of an ax, though he learns to be very care- 
ful when using tools, well knowing that there 
is no surgeon or hospital near at hand. Some- 
times in the early winter, men unaccompanied, 
yet obliged to travel alone, drop through the 
treacherous ice and are drowned. Few winters 
pass in a lumber country where instances of 
this kind do not occur. One day, when alone, 
I came near enough to such an experience. I 
was obliged to cross a lake, known to have air 
holes probably caused by warm springs. The 
ice was covered by a heavy layer of snow, con- 
sequently I wore snowshoes, and before start- 
ing to cross, cut a long, stout pole. Taking 
this firmly in my hands, I made my way out 
onto the ice. All went well until I was near the 
opposite shore, when suddenly the bottom 

113 



went out from under me and I fell into the 
water, through an unseen air hole which the 
snow covered. The pole I carried was suffi- 
cient in length to reach the firm ice on either 
side, which alone enabled me, after much la- 
bor, impeded as I was by the cumbersome 
snowshoes, to gain the surface. The next abso- 
lutely necessary thing to do, was to make a 
fire as quickly as possible, before I should be- 
come benumbed by my wet garments. 

The survey went steadily on, the snow and 
cold increased, and rarely was it possible to 
make an advance of more than four miles in a 
day. Frank Hoyt remained at the warehouse 
and watched the supplies which were steadily 
diminishing. One day, Philip B. Winston, two 
men of the crew, and I, set out to the supply 
camp to bring some provisions to the cook's 
camp. The first day at nightfall, we reached 
an Indian wigwam that we knew of, situated 
in a grove of hardwood timber, near the shore 
of a lake, directly on our route to the supply 
camp. Our little party stayed with the Indians 
and shared their hospitality. It was a large 
wigwam, covered principally with cedar bark, 
and there was an additional smaller wigwam 
so close to it, that a passage way was made 
from one wigwam to the other. 

114 



In the smaller wigwam lived a young In- 
dian, his squaw, and the squaw's mother ; in the 
larger wigwam lived the chief, his wife, his 
daughter, son-in-law, and the hunter, his wife, 
and two daughters, all of whom were present 
except the hunter. There was an air of expec- 
tancy noticeable as we sat on the mats around 
the fire in the wigwam, after having made 
some coffee and eaten our supper outside. 
Presently the chief informed us that an heir 
was looked for that evening in the adjoining 
tent. Before nine o'clock it was announced 
that a young warrior had made his appearance, 
and all were happy over his arrival. The large 
pipe was brought forth, filled with tobacco, 
and, after the chief had taken the first smoke, 
it was passed around to their guests, and all 
the men smoked, as well as the married women. 

The next morning, we continued our jour- 
ney across the lake and on to Hoyt's camp, 
where, it is needless to say, he was glad to see 
some white men. Their visits were rare at his 
camp. Filling our packs with things the cook 
had ordered, we started on our return journey, 
arriving at the Indian camp at nightfall. As 
we left the ice to go up to the wigwams, 
we met the mother of the young warrior 
who had made his first appearance the preced- 

115 



ing night, going down to the lake with a pail 
in each hand to bring some water to her wig- 
wam. The healthy young child was brought 
into the wigwam and shown to the members 
of our party, who complimented the young 
mother and wished that he might grow to be a 
brave, worthy to be chieftain of their tribe. 

That evening a feast had been prepared at 
the chief's wigwam, in honor of the birth of 
the child, to which our party was invited. The 
menu consisted principally of boiled rice, 
boiled muskrat, and boiled rabbit. The three 
principal foods having been cooked in one 
kettle and at the same time, it was served as 
one course, but the guests were invited to re- 
peat the course as often as they desired. This 
invitation was accepted by some, while others 
seemed satisfied to take the course but once. 
I have always found the hospitality of the 
Chippewa Indian unsurpassed, and more than 
once, in my frontier experiences, I have found 
that hospitality a godsend to me and to my 
party. 



116 




CHAPTER XVI. 

The Entire Party Moves to 
Swan River. 

T WAS in the month of February, 
1875, when the surveying party com- 
pleted its work east of Bow String 
Lake, and finished, one afternoon, 
closing its last lines on the Third Guide Meri- 
dian. At the camp, that afternoon, prepara- 
tions were being made for a general move of 
considerable distance. It is not always pos- 
sible for the frontiersman to reach his goal on 
the day that he has planned to do so. An in- 
stance in point occurred next day, when our 
surveying party was moving out to Grand 
Rapids. The snow was deep and the weather 
intensely cold when we broke camp that morn- 
ing, hoping before nightfall to reach one of 
Hill Lawrence's logging camps. Some Indians 
had been hired to help pack out our belongings. 
Our course lay directly through the unbroken 
forest, without trail or blazed line, and the 
right direction was kept only by the constant 
use of the compass. All were on snowshoes, 
and those of the party who could be depended 
upon to correctly use the compass, took turns 

117 



in breaking road. Each compassman would 
break the way through the snow for half an 
hour, then another would step in and break the 
way for another half hour, and he in turn 
would be succeeded by a third compassman. 
This change of leadership was continued all 
the way during that day. 

About the middle of the afternoon, the In- 
dians threw down their packs and left our 
party altogether, having become tired of their 
jobs. This necessitated dividing up the In- 
dians' packs and each man sufficiently able- 
bodied taking a part of these abandoned loads 
in addition to his own pack; and thus we con- 
tinued the journey. 

Night was fast approaching, and the dis- 
tance was too great to reach the Lawrence 
camp that night. Fortunately, there were 
some Indian wigwams not far in advance. 
These we reached after nightfall, and, as our 
party was very tired and carried no prepared 
food, we asked for shelter during the night, 
with the Indians. They soon made places 
where our men could spread their blankets 
around the small fire in the center of the wig- 
wams. Then we asked if we could be served 
with something to eat. We received an af- 
firmative "Ugh," and the squaws commenced 

118 




'These little animals were numerous' 
(Page 169.) 



preparing food, which consisted solely of a 
boiled rabbit stew with a little wild rice. It 
was once more demonstrated that hunger is a 
good cook. After having partaken of the un- 
selfishly proffered food, and, after most of our 
party had smoked their pipes, all lay down 
about the fire, and fell asleep. Even the pres- 
ence of Indian dogs, occasionally walking over 
us in the night, interfered but little with our 
slumbers. The next morning our party started 
out without breakfast, and by ten o'clock 
reached the Lawrence camp, where the cook 
set out, in a few minutes' time, a great variety 
of food, and an abundance of it, of which each 
man partook to his great satisfaction. 

From Lawrence camp we were able to secure 
the services of the tote team that was going 
out for supplies, which took our equipment 
through to Grand Rapids. From that point, 
we were able, also, to hire a team to take our 
supplies to the Swan River. Crossing this 
we went north to survey two townships, which 
would complete the winter's contract. 

It has been stated that this winter of 1874 
and 1875 was the coldest of which the Weather 
Bureau for Minnesota furnishes any history. 
Besides the intense cold, there were heavy 
snows. Nevertheless, no serious injury or 

119 



physical suffering of long duration befell any 
member of our band of hardy woodsmen. Not 
one of our number was yet thirty years old, 
the youngest one being eighteen. Two only 
of the party were married, Fendall G. Winston, 
and myself. On leaving Grand Rapids in Au- 
gust, we separated ourselves from all other 
white men. The party was as completely sep- 
arated from the outside world as though it had 
been aboard a whaling vessel in the Northern 
Seas. No letters nor communications of any 
kind reached us after winter set in, until our 
arrival in Grand Rapids in the month of Feb- 
ruary following. Letters were occasionally 
written and kept in readiness to send out by 
any Indian who might be going to the nearest 
logging camp, whence they might by chance 
be carried out to some postoffice. Whether 
these letters reached their destinations or not, 
could not be known by the writers as long as 
they remained on their work, hidden in the 
forest. 

I had left my young wife and infant daugh- 
ter, not yet a year old, in Minneapolis. Either, 
or both might have died and been buried be- 
fore any word could have reached me. It was 
not possible at all times to keep such thoughts 
out of my mind. Of course every day was a 

120 



busy one, completely filled with the duties of 
the hour, and the greatest solace was found in 
believing that all was well even though we 
could not communicate with each other. As I 
recall, no ill befell any one of the party nor of 
the party's dear ones, during all these long 
weeks and months of separation. Every man 
of the party seemed to become more rugged 
and to possess greater endurance as the cold 
increased. It became the common practice to 
let the camp fire burn down and die, as we 
rolled into our blankets to sleep till the morn- 
ing hour of arising. 

Not every night was spent in comfort, how- 
ever, though ordinarily that was the average 
experience. The less robust ones, of whom 
there were very few, sometimes received spe- 
cial attention. 

It was during the arduous journey, getting 
away from the scene of our first survey to that 
of the upper waters of Swan River, that one of 
our men fell behind all of the others, on a hard 
day's tramp. P. B. Winston, who had all the 
time been very considerate of him, observing 
that he was not keeping up to the party, but 
was quite a long way back on the trail which 
the men were breaking through the snow, said 
that he would wait for him until he should 

121 



catch up. Concealing himself behind a thicket 
close to the trail, he quietly awaited our friend's 
arrival. He told the following incident of the 
poor fellow's condition: 

Mr. Winston allowed him to pass him on the 
trail, unobserved, and heard him saying, as he 
rubbed one of his legs, "Oh Lord, my God, 
what ever made me leave my comfortable home 
and friends, and come out into this wilder- 
ness !" At this instant Mr. Winston called out, 

"What is the matter ?" "Oh, I'm 

freezing, and I don't know that I shall ever be 
of any use if I ever get out," he replied. He 
did live to get out and to reach his friends, 
none the worse for his doleful experience. He 
did not again, however, go north into the for- 
est, but tried another portion of the western 
country, where he became very prosperous. 

Long living around the open camp fire in the 
winter months, standing around in the smoke, 
and accumulating more or less of the odors 
from foods of various kinds being cooked by 
the open fire, invariably result in all of one's 
clothing and all of one's bedding becoming 
more or less saturated with the smell of the 
camp. This condition one does not notice 
while living in it from day to day, but he does 
not need to be out and away from such environ- 

122 




Z <N 

c 

c cu 



2 c 



ments for more than a few hours, before he be- 
comes personally conscious, to some degree, 
that such odors are not of a quality that would 
constitute a marketable article for cash. On 
arriving in Minneapolis at the close of the win- 
ter's campaign, without having changed our 
garments — as we had none with us that had not 
shared with us one and the same fate — Mr. 
P. B. Winston and I engaged a hack at the rail- 
road station, and drove to our respective 
homes. 

It was Mr. Winston's domicile that was first 
reached, and it happened, as the driver stopped 
in front of his house, that his fiance, Miss Kit- 
tie Stevens (the first white child born in Min- 
neapolis) , chanced to be passing by. Of course 
their meeting was unexpected to either, but 
was a pleasant and joyous one, though some- 
what embarrassing to Mr. Winston. The wind 
was blowing, and I noticed that he took the 
precaution to keep his own person out of the 
windward. He had been a soldier in the Con- 
federate Army, and I smiled with much satis- 
faction as I observed his splendid maneuver. 

On meeting me next day, Mr. Winston in- 
quired whether his tactics had been observed, 
and, being assured that they had, he said that 
that was the embarrassing moment for him, 

123 



for he did not know but that the young lady 
might have considered that she had just 
grounds for breaking the engagement. Both 
of us, however, knew better, for she was a 
young lady possessed of a large degree of com- 
mon sense and loveliness. The young people 
later were married, Mr. Winston becoming 
mayor of Minneapolis, remaining always, one 
of its best citizens. Often, afterwards, incidents 
of that winter's experience, a few of which 
have been herein recorded, were gone over to- 
gether with great pleasure by the parties in- 
terested. 



124 



J 




CHAPTER XVII. 

Methods of Acquiring Govern- 
ment Land — An Aban- 
doned Squaw. 

51 OR many years it was the practice of 
the United States government, after 
its lands had been surveyed, to ad- 
vertise them for sale at public auc- 
tion on a date fixed by the government. Time 
sufficient was always given to allow parties in- 
terested to go themselves, or send men into 
the woods, to examine the lands, and thus to 
be prepared on the day of sale, to bid as high 
a price on any description as each was willing 
to pay. After the time advertised for the lands 
to be thus offered, had expired, and after the 
land sale had been held, all lands not bought in 
at that sale became subject to private entry at 
the local land office. It was this class of lands 
that I bought in Wisconsin. 

After the Civil War, by act of Congress, each 
Union soldier was given the right to home- 
stead one hundred and sixty acres of land, the 
government price of which was one dollar and 
twenty-five cents per acre. It sometimes hap- 
pened that the soldier found only forty acres, 

125 



or possibly eighty acres, or one hundred and 
twenty acres, lying contiguous, that he cared 
to take as a homestead. Later, Congress 
passed another law enabling the soldier, who 
had thus previously entered fewer than one 
hundred and sixty acres, to take an additional 
homestead claim of enough acres, which, when 
added to his previous homestead, would make 
a total of one hundred and sixty acres. The 
soldier was not obliged to live on this addi- 
tional piece of land, but had the right to sell his 
certificate or scrip from the government, to 
anyone who might choose to buy it, and the 
purchaser, by power of attorney from the sol- 
dier, could with this scrip, himself enter the 
land. This became a common practice, cover- 
ing a period of several years, and it was with 
the use of this kind of scrip that very much 
of the land that was surveyed about the time I 
have been describing, was entered. 

In the following winter — that of 1875 and 
1876 — I was in the woods of Minnesota west 
of Cloquet, accompanied by an Indian named 
Antoine, and, while breaking trail on snow- 
shoes in the deep snow along an obscure road 
that had been cut through to Grand Rapids, on 
the Mississippi, I came to a small Indian tepee 
close by the side of the road. A little smoke 

126 



was curling from its peak, and a piece of an old 
blanket was hanging over its entrance. Call- 
ing aloud, I heard a faint voice of a woman an- 
swering from within. Entering the wigwam, 
we found there an impoverished, half-clad, 
half-frozen, perishing squaw. She told us that 
her feet had been frozen so that she could not 
walk, and that her family had left her to die. 
She had food enough, and possibly fuel enough, 
to last her about two more days. I was at a 
loss to know what was the wisest and most 
humane thing to do. We were far in the woods, 
and away from every human inhabitant. It 
was as easy to proceed to Grand Rapids as it 
was to retrace our steps to Duluth. A decision 
was soon made, and that was, that we would 
cut and split, and bring inside the wigwam a 
large pile of good wood, with plenty of kin- 
dling, and would leave the poor woman sup- 
plies from our pack sacks, of things most suit- 
able and most convenient for her to use, as 
whatever she did, must be done on her hands 
and knees. 

Having provided her with a liberal supply of 
rice, pork, crackers, some flour, sugar, tea, and 
a package of smoking tobacco — for all squaws 
smoke — besides melting snow until we had 
filled an old pail with water, we felt that she 

127 



could keep herself alive and comfortable for 
several days, at least. I then took out of my 
pack, a new pair of North Star camping 
blankets, and cutting them in two, left one- 
half to provide additional warmth for the un- 
fortunate squaw. As is the custom of her peo- 
ple when something much appreciated has been 
done for one of them, she took my hand and 
kissed it. Leaving her plenty of matches, we 
bade her good-by, and resumed our journey 
toward Grand Rapids. 

Once more on the trail, I asked Antoine how 
old he believed the squaw to be. He said maybe 
forty; I should have judged her to have been 
seventy, but no doubt I was mistaken, and the 
Indian's judgment was far better. Arriving at 
Grand Rapids, I wrote the authorities at Du- 
luth, and at Fond du Lac Indian Reservation, 
telling them of the poor woman's situation and 
where she was located. I afterwards learned 
that she had been sent for, and brought out by 
team, and that she had been subsequently taken 
to her band of Indians. 

I have been told by different Indians, that 
the sick and the aged are sometimes abandoned 
when the band is very short of provisions, and 
when to take the helpless with them, would 
prove a great burden. 

128 




CHAPTER XVIII. 

United States Land Sale at 
Duluth — Joe LaGarde. 

URING the summer of 1882, the 
United States government had ad- 
vertised that it would offer at public 
auction, many townships of land ly- 
ing along the border between Minnesota and 
Canada, in Cook, Lake, St. Louis, and Itasca 
Counties. This country was difficult to reach. 
The distance from Duluth to Lake Vermilion 
was upwards of ninety miles. There was not 
even a road through the woods, over which a 
loaded team could be driven. Men were 
obliged to take their supplies upon their backs 
and carry them over a trail, all of this distance. 
From Lake Vermilion, it was possible to work 
both eastward and westward, by using canoes 
and making numerous portages from one lake 
to another, and so on for seventy-five miles in 
either direction along the boundary. Supplies 
were soon exhausted, so that it was necessary 
to keep packers on the trail, bringing in on 
their backs, fresh supplies from Duluth to Ver- 
milion, where now is located the city of Tower. 

129 



In the Vermilion country, dog trains could 
sometimes be advantageously used. 

Estimators of timber were employed either 
for themselves or for others, in surveying the 
lands, and in estimating the pine timber in 
these various townships that were to be of- 
fered at public sale in the month of December. 
This work continued almost to the day when 
the sale was to begin. That sale was held at 
the local land office at Duluth, and there were 
present men interested in the purchase of pine 
timber, from Maine, Pennsylvania, New York, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and some 
men representing Canadian capital. The com- 
petition was vigorous, and Uncle Sam's lands 
were bid in at a round price. 

During the fall of 1882, while preparing for 
the approaching land sale at Duluth, the only 
son of William S. Patrick, Simeon D. Patrick, 
a veteran land examiner in my employ, and I, 
made a short trip west of Duluth, exploring a 
section of country south of where now is the 
station of Cornwall, on the Northern Pacific 
Railroad. Our packer and handy man who car- 
ried part of our supplies, was an Indian of con- 
siderable note, by the name of John LaGarde, 
familiarly known as Joe LaGarde. He was a 
fine specimen of Chippewa Indian trapper, tall, 

130 




3 cu 



2 S 






straight, muscular, and a good burden bearer, 
but rather averse to long days' work. He was 
handy about camp, but, being an Indian, and 
accustomed to lying down at night with his 
feet close to a few live embers, he did not share 
with the white man the wish for large piles of 
wood to last through the cold nights that pre- 
vailed during this trip. 

It happened that one evening we pitched 
our tent near a small stream, in a grove com- 
posed principally of young birch, but inter- 
spersed with large and shaggy ones. Everyone 
at all familiar with the birch knows there is 
much of it, on which the outer bark peels nat- 
urally, and it is no uncommon thing to be able 
to peel, with the use of the hands only, large 
quantities of the bark. There was almost an 
inexhaustible supply of just such bark near 
this camping ground. Joe was either tired or 
indisposed to work that evening, and when 
bedtime arrived, the pile of wood looked very 
scant for the long hours of the night. No one 
likes a little innocent fun better than my friend 
Patrick. Looking at the small woodpile, then 
at Joe, Patrick gave me a twinkle of his eye, 
started out into the semidarkness, and com- 
menced peeling bark off the birch trees. He 
busied himself thus, until he had peeled off and 

131 



brought in near our tent, a huge pile of this 
beautiful birch bark. 

No matter how rainy the weather may be, 
or how deep the snow in winter, if the fron- 
tiersman is fortunate enough to be camped in 
a grove of live birch, he knows that this ever 
friendly and useful birch bark will afford him a 
sure means of kindling a fire. It carries much 
oil and burns readily when a match is applied 
to it. The fire was fixed for the night, and 
Patrick and I lay down in our tent under our 
blankets to sleep. Joe, as was his custom, 
curled up at the foot of the tent and left his 
bare feet sticking out toward the fire. His re- 
quirement of blanket was less than half of what 
would satisfy a white man. As long as his feet 
were warm, the Indian did not suffer from cold. 
About midnight the fire had burned very low, 
when Patrick emerged from the tent and com- 
menced dropping pieces of birch bark on the 
fast consuming fire logs. I was well back in 
the tent, propped up a little on my elbows, en- 
joying the glow of the fire, and watching it, as 
well as watching the Indian. As the fire in- 
creased and the flames rose higher, the In- 
dian's feet began to twitch, and to draw up 
closer to his body. Soon the heat was so tre- 
mendous that the tent was in danger, when, 

132 



like a missile, thrown by a strong spring, the 
Indian shot out of his blanket and into the 
woods, muttering his imprecations in Chip- 
pewa. He did not swear, for praise be to the 
Chippewa language, it contains no such words ; 
but a madder Indian and a happier white man 
are seldom seen. The sequel to this episode 
was plenty of good fuel to burn during all of 
the following nights of this cruise in the for- 
est. 

We employed LaGarde on other and later 
trips, and his services were always satisfactory. 
He has since gone to the happy hunting 
ground, and, with his passing, a tinge of sad- 
ness steals over us, for his memory is dear, and 
we have no right or wish to count him as other 
than our brother. He was always true to the 
white man, and deserves his meed of praise. 

An account of his death appeared in the Du- 
luth Herald, February 28th, 1911, from which 
the following summary is gathered : 

His age is given in the death certificate, as 
one hundred years. He was born on the Red 
Lake Indian Reservation, near Thief River 
Falls. His mother was a full-blooded Chip- 
pewa, and his father a half-breed with a 
French-Canadian name. In 1834, when about 
twenty-four years old, he came with his 

183 



mother, to the Head of the Lakes, and settled 
at the historic John Jacob Astor Trading Post, 
at Fond du Lac. Three years later, while trad- 
ing at Madeleine Island, near Bayfield, he met 
Liola Chievier, a half-breed, whom he after- 
wards married and brought to Fond du Lac. 
There were seven children to this union, but 
only three are now living. The youngest, aged 
fifty-five, lived at Fond du Lac with his father. 
The other two were located on the White 
Earth Reservation. They were Moses and Si- 
mon. The old man's wife died about thirty- 
eight years ago. LaGarde lived in Fond du 
Lac about seventy-seven years. He possessed 
a remarkable physique. His chest was well de- 
veloped, his body straight as an arrow, and he 
stood six feet two inches in height. Being a 
Chippewa, LaGarde loved peace more than 
war, and he never took part in any Indian out- 
break. As far back as the memory of any 
white man of the suburb goes, he had a reputa- 
tion of being honest in all his transactions with 
the white traders. His body was buried in the 
Indian burying grounds, at the Fond du Lac 
Indian Reservation near Cloquet. 



134 




CHAPTER XIX. 

Six Hundred Miles in a 
Birch Canoe. 

HE following summer, I hired a num- 
ber of men to pack some supplies 
from Duluth to the shores of Lake 
Vermilion. I had with me one white 
man to assist me in a reestimate of the pine 
timber that I had bought at the land sale in De- 
cember. Canoes were purchased of the Indians, 
and I employed some of them to go as packers 
and canoemen. 

The work first took the party eastward a dis- 
tance of fifty miles. Not only was the timber 
reexamined, but the character of the streams 
was carefully noted, with reference to their 
feasibility for floating out the timber, when- 
ever the time should come for it to be cut and 
brought to market. All of that country is very 
rugged and much broken. The shores of the 
lakes are bold and rock-bound. Islands exist 
in nearly all of the lakes, and at that time they 
were thoroughly wooded, many of them con- 
taining fine bunches of pine timber. The coun- 
try was picturesque and the scenery most en- 
chanting. Aquatic birds of various species 

135 



were frequently startled from the water as our 
canoes came in sight of them. Fish were 
abundant and could be taken in almost any one 
of the lakes, by throwing out a line. There 
were caribou and moose in the country, but 
no deer at that time. 

Bands of Indians were living along these 
waters, most of them belonging to the United 
States, but, as we turned and went westward, 
on the waters of Lake La Croix we met many 
Canadian Indians. They all spoke the same 
language, though sometimes with great differ- 
ence in accent. There were many waterfalls, 
and around these, in every instance, a portage 
had to be made of all our supplies and of our 
canoes. One day's experience was much like 
that of its predecessor or like that of the one to 
follow. On the whole, the work was less ar- 
duous than that in a country which is mostly 
land and not cut up by numerous lakes, as is 
the condition in all of the northern woods in 
Minnesota. A camping ground would be se- 
lected on a shore of a lake, and, from this one 
camp, it was often our experience that several 
days' work could be economically accomplished 
before it was necessary to again move. The 
timber that we wished to examine often lay on 
either side of the lake on the shore of which the 

136 




to rH 

O c« 

o a, 

E - 



c •* 



camping ground had been selected. Thus the 
work continued until the party reached Rainy 
Lake. This lake is fifty-five miles long, and at 
its foot, at that time, on the Canadian side, was 
Fort Francis. Much of this water route was 
then known as the Dawson Route. It had been 
used by the Canadian government to reach the 
Canadian Northwest with its soldiers, at the 
time of the Riel Rebellion. The shattered re- 
mains of a number of French batteaus were 
seen on the rapids between different lakes, 
where an attempt had been made to navigate 
the waters, which had disastrously failed. 

Just below Fort Francis, which is at the be- 
ginning of the Rainy River which flows into 
Lake of the Woods, we found a Canadian 
farmer. He had been an engineer on board a 
Canadian steamer that plied from Rat Portage 
to Fort Francis. When the rebellion was over, 
and there was no longer use for steamboating, 
this man determined to take a homestead un- 
der the Canadian land laws. This was at the 
latter end of July. While our party was pre- 
paring dinner on the bank of the river at the 
edge of the settler's meadow, he came down to 
see us. It was seldom that he saw any of the 
white race, and, when one chanced to pass by, 
he was always glad, he said, to see him and 

137 



learn something of the outside world. He in- 
vited us to go back into his meadow where, he 
assured us, we should find an abundance of 
ripe, wild strawberries. This we found to be 
true, and the berries were indeed a luxury to a 
lot of men who had been living on nothing bet- 
ter than dried peaches or dried apples, stewed 
and made into sauce. 

The work of examining lands was now com- 
pleted for this trip, but the easiest way out was 
to continue down Rainy River into Lake of the 
Woods, and across Lake of the Woods to Rat 
Portage, where a train on the Canadian Pa- 
cific could be boarded and the journey con- 
tinued to Winnipeg, and from thence by rail 
back to Minneapolis. At that time no logs 
had been driven down the Rainy River to mar 
the beauty of its shore lines which were the 
most beautiful of any river I have ever seen in 
Minnesota or in Canada. In some places for 
half a mile at a stretch there would be a con- 
tinuous gravel shore. Its waters were deep 
and clear. 

Near the mouth of Rainy River, our party 
overtook Colonel Eaton and his helper, a man 
from Wisconsin, whose name, I believe, was 
Davis. Colonel Eaton was United States gov- 
ernment inspector of lands, and was on a tour 

138 



of inspection to ascertain to what extent the 
land laws relating to homestead entries were 
being complied with. Each was glad to meet 
the other, and in company, we traveled from 
that time until we finally arrived at Rat Port- 
age. 

Lake of the Woods is a very large body of 
water, and not everywhere is it safe to venture 
out upon it in small boats or canoes. Colonel 
Eaton had a staunch rowboat. At Rainy Lake 
I had paid off and dismissed most of my help- 
ers, so that I had but one canoe remaining. 
This was occupied by myself and the white 
man, my assistant, whom I had taken at the 
beginning of the journey. For a considerable 
distance, the party was able to keep behind the 
islands and away from the open lake, until it 
arrived at a point that is known as a traverse, 
a wide opening between islands, where the 
westerly winds, if blowing heavily, have a tre- 
mendous sweep. Our party found the white- 
caps rolling in across this traverse, on the top 
of waves so high that neither of our crafts 
could possibly live, if out in them. Here, on 
this island, we went ashore and made our camp 
as comfortable as possible while waiting for 
the wind and waves to subside. 

Both parties had been long from home, and 

139 



were practically without food to eat. We were 
obliged to stay on that island three nights and 
two days before the water had calmed suffi- 
ciently for us to cross the traverse. In the 
meantime, we had eaten the last of our sup- 
plies, and were subsisting wholly upon what 
blueberries we were able to find growing on 
the island. Some public work was about to be- 
gin up the Rainy River, and we had been in- 
formed that a steamer from Rat Portage, 
loaded with various articles of merchandise, 
was liable to come up the lake to enter the river 
at almost any time ; consequently we were con- 
tinually on the lookout for the steamer, it being 
the only source from which we could hope to 
get anything to eat, before we should arrive at 
Rat Portage. Finally the steamer was spied 
on the afternoon of the second day of our un- 
foreseen residence on the island. With towels 
tied to poles, our party, hoping to be able to 
signal the passing steamer, went to the shore 
of the island. It was well out on the lake from 
our shore, and our hopes began to wane as we 
saw it steam by us, not having given us any in- 
dication that it had seen our signal. Suddenly, 
however, our fears were turned to hope and 
joy as we saw its bow turning in our direction. 
It made a long sweep on account of the high 

140 



sea, and came in behind our island where the 
water was deep, and the nose of the steamer 
was brought almost to our shore. We quickly 
told the captain our plight, and asked only that 
we might purchase of him a little flour and a 
little meat, a little tea and a little coffee, suffi- 
cient to take us to Rat Portage, including a 
possible longer delay on the island because of 
the wind that was yet blowing. This he gladly 
gave us, refusing to accept any compensation ; 
and with grateful hearts, we waved him adieu 
as the boat resumed its course. The following 
morning, early, the lake was quite calm; and, 
after a hasty breakfast, we pulled out from 
shore, crossed the traverse, and once more got 
behind the friendly islands. From this time 
on to Rat Portage, our journey was without 
special interest, the party returning together 
by rail to Minneapolis. 



141 




CHAPTER XX. 

Effect of Discovery of Iron Ore 
on Timber Industry. 

URING the same year that the 
United States government offered its 
lands in the northern counties of 
Minnesota at public auction, new in- 
terests effecting the market for pine timber 
were created by the discovery of iron ore of a 
marketable quality, near the south shore of 
Lake Vermilion, where now is the city of Tow- 
er, Minnesota. 

Historically, the first mention of iron ore in 
northern Minnesota dates back to the report of 
J. G. Norwood, made in 1850, in which he men- 
tioned the occurrence of iron ore at Gunflint 
Lake, but claimed no commercial importance 
in his discovery. The Geological and Natural 
History Survey of Minnesota, Volume 4, page 
583, records the following: "H. H. Eames, 
state geologist of Minnesota in 1865 and 1866, 
was the first to observe and report iron ore on 
both the Vermilion and Mesabi ranges, and to 
consider it of any value. In his report for 1866, 
he describes the ore outcroppings near the 
southern shore of Lake Vermilion, and in his 

142 



report, published the following year, is an ac- 
count of the ore at Prairie River Falls, on the 
western end of the Mesabi, and several analyses 
showing it to be of good quality." 

As early as 1880, Professor A. H. Chester, in 
the interest of private parties, made a personal 
examination of the Vermilion Iron Range, and 
predicted that an iron ore district of immense 
value and importance would be found to exist 
on that range. George C. Stone of Duluth, one 
of the parties who had employed Chester to 
make the examination for iron ore, was elected 
a member of the Minnesota legislature, and, 
through his instrumentality, in 1881, a law was 
passed, "to encourage mining in this state, by 
providing a uniform rate for the taxing of min- 
ing properties and products." This law pro- 
vided for a payment of a tax of fifty cents for 
each ton of copper, and one cent for each ton of 
iron ore, mined and shipped or disposed of; 
each ton to be estimated as containing two 
thousand two hundred and forty pounds. The 
Duluth and Iron Range Railroad was con- 
structed from Two Harbors, on Lake Superior, 
to Tower, Minnesota; and in August, 1884, the 
first shipment of iron ore was made from the 
Minnesota Mine at Tower. 

143 



Promising outcrops of iron ore bearing rocks 
were found east of Tower, where now is the 
flourishing town of Ely. Work was begun on 
these outcrops, resulting in the finding of the 
Chandler Mine, by Captain John Pengilly, from 
which, in 1888, the first shipment of iron ore 
was made, the railroad having been extended 
from Tower to Ely, for the purpose, primarily, 
of shipping the iron ore to Two Harbors, and 
thence to the eastern markets. Other mines 
were later found in this vicinity. The building 
and equipping of this railroad created a de- 
mand for manufactured lumber, for railroad 
ties, and for telegraph poles. Sawmills were 
built at different points along the line of the 
railroad and at its terminals, so that the years 
immediately following were busy ones for 
those dealing in standing timber and its manu- 
factured products. 

My associates and I had acquired interests 
in these localities, so that much of my time for 
nearly a decade, was actively employed along 
the line of the Vermilion Range. During these 
years from 1882 to 1888, the most practical 
modes of travel, and almost the only ones, were 
either by birch canoe and portaging from lake 
to lake in summer, or by dog train during the 
winter. Sometimes these trips were pleasant 

144 



ones, but quite as often they were attended by 
incidents not always agreeable. 

On one of these occasions late in October, 
accompanied by one white man known only as 
"Buffalo," I started to travel east from Tower, 
on Lake Vermilion, along the route followed 
by the Indians, to the foot of Fall Lake, a dis- 
tance of forty-five miles. It was some time after 
noon when we pulled out from shore in our 
two-man canoe, a small craft, affording just 
room for two men to sit, and to carry their 
pack sacks and scant supplies. Soon it began 
to rain, and the wind commenced blowing. We 
were approaching an island, when Buffalo, who 
had had much experience on the Great Lakes 
as a sailor, insisted that we could not reach our 
landing at the easterly end of the lake, before 
dark, without the use of a sail. Arriving at an 
island, we pulled our canoe ashore, and Buffalo 
quickly improvised a sail, which was hoisted in 
the bow of the canoe and the boat was again 
launched. In this manner we sailed and pad- 
dled at a much accelerated speed, but all of the 
time we were in imminent danger of being cap- 
sized, it being my first experience of riding in a 
birch canoe carrying a sail. Fortune favored 
the undertaking, however, and we made a safe 

145 



landing in time to pitch our tent and make our 
camp for the night. 

During the night the cold increased, and 
when we arose in the morning, we found that 
ice had formed on the water in the little bay 
of the lake. We made a number of portages 
that day, the cold increasing so that in all of 
the little bays, ice was forming. We succeeded 
in crossing Burnt Side Lake and entering the 
river leading to Long Lake as it was getting 
dark. We were then six miles from what we 
knew to be a comfortable ranch near the lower 
end of Long Lake, which Buffalo strongly 
urged we should try to reach that night, al- 
though to do so meant that we must pass be- 
tween some islands where, in places, we knew 
the rocks projected out of the water, and there- 
fore were perilous to our birch canoe. We de- 
cided to make the effort, and soon after push- 
ing out from shore, we were only able to faintly 
discern the outlines of the islands that we must 
pass. Fortunately, these were soon alongside 
of us, and we had passed the last dangerous 
reef of rocks. Then, to our great satisfaction, 
we saw the light from the lantern which had 
been hung out on a pile driven close by the 
outer end of the dock at the foot of the lake, 
about four miles distant, where the ranch, that 

146 



we hoped to reach that night, was located. The 
wind had died down so that the surface of the 
lake was comparatively smooth, but we no- 
ticed that our mittens, which had become thor- 
oughly wet, were freezing on our hands. For 
one hour we paddled in silence, when the light 
toward which we had been steering, became 
much more visible, and soon we landed at the 
little dock, thankful that we had made our 
journey safely. Our appetites were keen for 
the good, broiled steak and hot potatoes that 
previous experience had taught us we were 
pretty sure to receive, and in this we were not 
disappointed. 

The following summer, I passed over this 
same canoe route under quite different circum- 
stances. My work of examining lands and tim- 
ber all lay near to the shores of several lakes. 
My wife's father, J. H. Conkey, and her 
brother, Frank L. Conkey, had often expressed 
a wish to see that northern country. Accom- 
panied by them and also by my son, Frank 
Merton, who was then a boy in short pants, we 
journeyed by rail to Tower. Before leaving 
Duluth for Tower, Mose Perrault was added 
to our number. 

Perrault was a fine specimen of man, six feet 
in height, well-proportioned, of middle age, 

147 



and thoroughly familiar with frontier life. At 
Tower, we started out with two birch canoes, 
and after dinner, on a pleasant afternoon in Au- 
gust, we pushed our canoes out into the waters 
of Lake Vermilion, from the same point from 
which we had left in the rain, the previous Oc- 
tober. We reached the east end of Vermilion 
early, portaged into Mud Lake, went up the 
river, and camped on the high ground west of 
Burnt Side Lake, in a pine grove where we 
were surrounded by blueberry bushes laden 
with their large, ripe fruit. 

Our party was made up of two classes of 
people; one out to examine timber, the other, 
to fish and have a good time. While crossing 
one of the portages, my brother-in-law, Frank 
L. Conkey, who knew almost nothing about 
canoeing or portaging, but was willing, and 
full of hard days' work, picked up two pack 
sacks, one of which was strapped to his 
shoulders, and the other was placed on top of 
his shoulders and the back of his head. Thus 
burdened, he started across Mud Portage, the 
footing of which, in places, was very insecure. 
At an unfortunate moment, he caught his foot 
in a root and tumbled, the top pack sack shoot- 
ing over his head and breaking open at its fast- 
enings, thus spilling its contents on the 

148 




X! 

c 
£ A. 

fi -a 




"He motors over the fairly good roads of the 
northern frontier." (Page 180.1 



ground. All that could be found of these, were 
gathered together and replaced in the pack 
sack, and the journey was resumed. Mose Per- 
rault was the cook, and on arriving at the 
camping ground at night, he began prepara- 
tions for making bread and getting the evening 
meal. The pack sack that had broken open, 
originally contained two tin cans, one filled 
with baking powder, and the other, with fresh 
live worms buried in earth, that had been gath- 
ered for bait for the fishing party. Perrault 
wanted the baking powder with which to 
leaven the dough. The fishermen wanted their 
worms with which to bait their hooks. The 
latter were gratified, but nowhere could the 
baking powder be found, and we were forced 
to the conclusion that it was one of the lost ar- 
ticles on the portage. That night and the next 
day, we lived on bread made without any 
leaven, which from a number of experiences, I 
feel competent to state, is never a great suc- 
cess. The fishing, however, was good, and on 
the portages enough partridges were shot with- 
in revolver range to afford plenty of good meat 
for the party. These we cooked with bacon 
and dressed with butter, of which we had a 
goodly supply. There were plenty of crackers 
and Carolina rice, with blueberries close at 

149 



hand for the picking, so that the party sub- 
sisted well, until it arrived at Ely, where the 
three fishermen bade Perrault and me farewell, 
returning to their homes by railroad train, 
after a pleasant outing. 

In February, 1891, my three companions and 
I had a very different experience, away east of 
Ely, where we had gone to survey and estimate 
a tract of pine timber. The snow was deep, 
and the journey, which had to be made with the 
use of toboggans, was a hard one. I had, as 
my associate and chief timber estimator, S. D. 
Patrick. In addition were the cook, and Buf- 
falo, a man whose name has appeared on a pre- 
vious page. This man is worthy of more than 
passing notice. His true name I never knew. 
He always said, "Call me 'Buffalo'." He 
claimed to have been born at Buffalo, New 
York, and to have spent his childhood and 
early youth in that city. He was an Irish- 
American and was possessed of the typical 
Irish wit on all occasions. He was never angry 
to the extent of being disagreeable, but he had 
no patience for any man in the party who re- 
fused or neglected to do his full share of the 
work. He claimed that when a boy, he had 
earned money at the steamboat landings at 
Buffalo, by diving under the water for coins 

150 



--i**L J 



thrown to him by passengers on board the 
ships at anchor in the harbor, as did also the 
late Daniel O'Day of the Standard Oil Com- 
pany. He too, was an Irish-American, born 
and raised near Buffalo, and at his death left 
millions of dollars. He once told me that when 
a youth he had earned many dimes and quar- 
ters by diving for them alongside the passenger 
ships in Buffalo Harbor. 

Buffalo was always ready to act promptly 
and to do, or to undertake to do, anything that 
was requested of him. On this occasion he had 
an opportunity to demonstrate these good 
qualities. The trip was attended with the 
greatest of hardships, of heavy work, and of 
exposure to intense cold. Buffalo was a good 
axman, and not one night did he fail to cut 
and pile near to the camp, enough wood to last 
until after breakfast the next morning. 

Our camp was established on the shores of 
Kekekabic Lake, in Township 64 N., Range 
7 W., for several days and nights. There were 
many partridges in this section of the forest. 
They would come out on the borders of the 
woods next to the lake. It was possible to 
shoot one or more nearly every day, so that the 
camp was supplied with fresh game. The cook 
and Buffalo remained at the camp, while Mr. 

151 



Patrick and I went out each day to examine 
timber, returning at night. The daylight cov- 
ered none too many hours, so that we arose 
early and started on our journey after break- 
fast, as soon as we could see to travel, in order 
that the day's work might be accomplished, 
and the return to camp made before dark. It 
was not possible to calculate the day's work so 
as to be sure that we could reach camp before 
nightfall, but, owing to the intense cold that 
prevailed at this time, it was only the part of 
wisdom to plan so as to return to camp while 
we could yet see where to travel. Nearly every 
day's work was, in part at least, over a new 
tract of land, to which a new trail must be 
broken in the morning as we went out to the 
work. 

One day our work lay directly north of our 
camp, through the woods, out onto a small lake, 
and again into the woods. We knew, before 
leaving camp in the morning, that it would re- 
quire our best efforts to accomplish the work 
and to return before nightfall. For this reason, 
we started at daybreak, and, after having done 
our best, it was night before we commenced to 
retrace our steps. The cold had increased all 
day, so that we were obliged to summon our 
courage at times, to keep our feet and hands 

152 



from freezing. We were only two miles from 
camp when our return journey began ; but two 
miles in an unbroken wilderness, in deep snow, 
with the only path to follow being the tracks 
made by two men passing once over it, is a long 
distance to travel when daylight has disap- 
peared, and when to leave those tracks at such 
a temperature, would probably prove fatal. 

Within a few minutes from the time of our 
beginning to retrace our steps, each step was 
taken by the sense of feeling. We were both 
clad in moccasins, which made it possi- 
ble, through the sense of feeling, to distinguish 
between the unbroken snow and that which 
had been stepped upon during the morning 
hours of that day. Being in darkness, we dared 
not proceed whenever we were not certain that 
our feet were in the path that we had made on 
going out to our work. A few times we lost 
the path. Immediately we stopped, one man 
standing still, in order that we might not lose 
our location, while the other felt around until 
the path was regained. We knew that if we 
should lose it, the one thing remaining for us 
would be to walk around a tree, if it were possi- 
ble to do so, until morning light should appear. 
We went slowly on, never giving up hope. 

153 



It was getting late in the evening, so that 
Buffalo, at camp, became alarmed for our safe- 
ty. His wits were at work, and he commenced 
to build a large fire. Then he found, near by, 
a dead pine stub. About this he piled kindling 
until he got it on fire. It is not possible to 
write words describing the satisfaction and joy 
with which we two lonely travelers finally 
spied the illumination, penetrating the dark 
forest for a short distance only, it is true, yet 
far enough. Soon we walked into camp, to the 
joy of all of the party, and there we found an 
excellent supper awaiting us. Buffalo's big 
wood pile was in waiting at all the hours of 
that night, and some one was astir to keep the 
fire going. It was the only night of my long 
experience of living in the woods, when it was 
impossible, for more than a short period, to be 
comfortable away from the fire, and even then, 
we each in turn revolved our bodies about the 
open fire, first warming one side, and then the 
other, and slept but little. 

After our work was completed, and we had 
gotten back in touch with the civilized world, 
we were told by residents at Tower, that the 
thermometer on that night, had indicated from 
48° to 52° below zero. 

The following summer, on one of my trips to 

154 




•c 2 



* a, 



6 8 



this then picturesque country in northeastern 
Minnesota, I tried the experiment of taking my 
wife, who had long been an invalid, and my 
son, Frank Merton, then a boy in his early 
teens, with me, in the hope that the trip would 
prove beneficial to the wife and mother. The 
experiment was in no way disappointing, 
although on one occasion when the rain 
had poured incessantly, leaving the woods 
drenched, in crossing a rather blind and un- 
avoidable portage, Mrs. Warren's clothing 
became thoroughly wet. In the absence of a 
wardrobe from which to choose a change of 
garments, the expedient was resorted to of 
requesting her to remove one garment at a 
time, which Vincent De Foe, a half-breed, and 
James O'Neill, an old and trusty friend, held 
to the open fire, until it was dry. This she 
replaced, when another wet garment went 
through the same process, until all had been 
dried. No ill effects followed ; on the contrary, 
Mrs. Warren's health continued to improve. 
At the end of the trip I was so happy over 
the results that I sent the following account 
of some of its incidents to Dr. Albert Shaw, 
then of the Minneapolis Tribune, and at pres- 
ent, editor of the Review of Reviews. This 

155 



little account appeared in the Tribune of Sat- 
urday, September 6, 1890: 

"IN THE WILDS OF MINNESOTA. 



Mrs. G. H. Warren's Travels in the North- 
eastern Part of the State. 

Mrs. G. H. Warren and her son Frank re- 
turned to the city Monday from a two weeks' 
tour of the Vermilion Iron Range, north of 
Lake Superior. Their trip was both inter- 
esting and novel. From Ely, the eastern 
terminus of the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad, 
they embarked in birch canoes, traversing ten 
lakes, thirteen portages and three small rivers 
as far as they were navigable for birch canoes. 
The whole distance thus traveled included over 
one hundred miles. Pike, pickerel, bass, white 
fish, or landlocked salmon abound in all these 
lakes of rugged shores. Master Frank reports 
the capture of a twenty-seven inch pike and a 
thirty-seven inch pickerel. In one of the bays 
of Basswood Lake — a beautiful body of clear 
water thirty miles in length and extending 
several miles into Canada — the Indians were 
seen gathering wild rice. This is accomplished 
by the male Indian standing upright in the bow 

156 



of his canoe, and paddling it forward through 
the field of rice, the stalks of which grow from 
three to four feet above the water; while his 
squaw sits in the stern of the canoe, and with 
two round sticks about the size, and half the 
length of a broom handle, dexterously bends 
the long heads of the rice over the gunwale 
of the canoe with one stick, while at the same 
instant, she strikes the well filled heads a sharp, 
quick blow with the other, threshing out the 
kernels of rice, which fall into the middle por- 
tion of the canoe. This middle portion is pro- 
vided, for the occasion, with a cloth apron, 
into which the rice kernels fall. The apron 
will hold about two bushels, and is filled in the 
manner above described in less than three 
hours' time. The rice is next picked over to 
free it from chaff and straw, after which it is 
placed in brass kettles and parched over a slow 
fire ; then it is winnowed, and is ready for future 
use. 

Mrs. Warren is the first white woman to 
penetrate so far on the frontier of wild North- 
eastern Minnesota, and though never before 
subjected to uncivilized life, or the primitive 
mode of travel, she endured the walks over the 
portages, slept soundly on beds of balsam fir 
boughs, ate with a relish the excellent fish and 

157 



wild game cooked at the camp fire, and returns 
to her home in the city with health much im- 
proved, and enthusiastic over the many beau- 
ties of nature in this yet wild, but attractive 
portion of Minnesota." 



158 




CHAPTER XXI. 

Forest Fires. 

HE terrible forest fires that swept 
over much of Wisconsin and Minne- 
sota during the summer of 1894, re- 
sulting in such an appalling loss of 
life at Hinckley and vicinity, will always be 
remembered by the people living in the north- 
ern half of Minnesota. 

One who has never been in the forest at a 
time when the fires within it extended over 
many miles of area, cannot appreciate the 
danger and the anxiety of those who are thus 
placed. I vividly recall two days during the 
summer of the Peshtigo fire, when I was in 
the burning woods of Wisconsin. The sun 
was either entirely obscured, or it hung like 
a red ball above the earth, now penetrating 
the clouds of smoke, now again being hidden 
by them. The smoke came at times in great 
rolls at the surface of the earth, then was 
caught up by the breeze and lifted to higher 
altitudes, and at all times was bewildering to 
those whom it surrounded. 

No one could tell from what point of the 
compass the distant fire was most dangerous, 

159 



nor in what direction it was making most rapid 
progress toward the point where he was lo- 
cated. At times one became choked by the 
thick smoke. For many hours, during one of 
these days, I moved with my face close to the 
ground, that I might get air sufficient to 
breathe. When finally I came to an open 
country where the currents of wind could lift 
the smoke, I experienced a feeling of the great- 
est thankfulness that I was delivered from the 
condition of the two last days, surrounded with 
so much uncertainty as to my safety. 

The memorable fire of September 1st, 1894, 
which swept Hinckley and all its surrounding 
country, resulted in the death of four hundred 
and seventeen human beings, left destitute two 
thousand two hundred, and extended over an 
area of four hundred square miles. The finan- 
cial loss was upwards of one million dollars. 

That loss does not include the great losses 
of timber situated in the northeastern part of 
Minnesota, extending all along its boundary 
and reaching into Canada. The fire in north- 
eastern Minnesota destroyed millions of dol- 
lars worth of standing pine timber, much of 
which was entirely consumed, while portions 
of it were killed at the root. Such timber as 
was thus killed, but not destroyed, had most 

160 



of its value yet remaining, provided that it 
were cut and put in the water, during the first 
one or two seasons following. Later than that, 
most of its value would have been destroyed 
by worms boring into the dead timber. On 
account of these fires, it was necessary for 
all timber owners to make a careful examina- 
tion of all timber lands within the burnt dis- 
trict. For this purpose, accompanied by S. D. 
Patrick, and E. A. White, timber examiners 
to assist in the work, and my son, Frank Mer- 
ton, then a senior in the University of Minne- 
sota, besides packers, I went, in 1897, into 
the burnt districts in northeastern Minnesota. 
As a result of these forest fires, one of the 
worst pests that the frontiersman meets is the 
black fly, which flourishes in a burnt country. 
This little insect is apparently always hungry, 
is never tired, and wages a relentless fight upon 
every inch of the white man's epidermis that 
is exposed to its reach, even penetrating the 
hair and beard of a man, and leaving the effects 
of its poisonous bite. So terrible were these 
little pests, and so numerous were they on two 
days of the excursion, that one eye of each of 
three of the white men in the party was so 
badly swollen by the bites of the insects, that 
it was closed. No remedy has ever been offered 

161 



that effectually protects the woodsman from 
injuries inflicted by this insect. 

While our party was on that expedition that 
summer, reestimating the timber in the burnt 
district, Mr. Patrick came close to a large bull 
moose standing in some thick woods. The 
animal had not yet discovered Mr. Patrick's 
presence, consequently he was able to carefully 
examine and study this great beast of our 
northern woods. Below the animal's hips, on 
either side, at a point where he could in no wise 
protect himself from the ravages of this insect 
pest, the poor beast's flesh was raw and was 
bleeding. The Indians claim that their dogs 
frequently go mad and have to be killed as 
a result of the bites inflicted by these insects. 

In proof of the wide range of their activities 
I will briefly relate one experience with them 
in Wisconsin. Joseph McEwen and I left 
Wausau one morning, riding out behind a 
livery team twenty miles to the Big Eau Plaine 
River, in search of desirable cranberry marsh 
lands. The country we traveled over was flat. 
Fires had recently killed the timber, and black 
flies formed one vast colony over this territory. 

Our driver had trouble controlling the horses, 
so fierce was the attack of the black flies upon 
them. We arrived at the nearest point of our 

162 



work that could be reached by team about ten 
o'clock in the forenoon, and dismissed our 
driver. We then proceeded on foot into this 
burnt, marshy country, attacked continuously 
by swarms of flies. They penetrated our ears, 
our noses, and our mouths if we opened them. 
They worked themselves into our hair, up our 
sleeves, under our collar bands, over the tops 
of our socks and down into them until they 
found the end of our drawers where, next, was 
our naked skin. 

We camped at night in the marsh. The next 
morning the attack was renewed as vigorously 
as it had been waged on the previous day. At 
eleven o'clock we stopped for our dinner. 
McEwen wore a heavy beard all over his face; 
my face was bare. He looked at me as we 
were eating our dinner, then dryly remarked, 
"I don't know how I look, but you look like 
the devil ; the black flies have bitten you every- 
where ; your face is a fright." We went out to 
the main road, and secured a conveyance by 
which we reached Wausau about five o'clock 
that afternoon. 

I went immediately to my accustomed hotel, 
owned and managed by Charles Winkley. He 
had known me well for years, and I had left 
him less than forty-eight hours previous to my 

163 



entering on that afternoon. Mr. Winkley was 
behind his desk. I greeted him and asked him 
how business was. He answered me quite 
independently that his house was full, and that 
he had not a vacant room. I then asked him 
if there was any mail for me, giving him my 
full name. He looked at me in astonishment, 
then exclaimed, "My God ! What is the matter 
of you?" I said, "Black flies." Then he con- 
tinued, "I mistook you for some man with the 
small-pox and was planning to notify the au- 
thorities and have you cared for. Go right to 
your room and stay there. Mrs. Winkley will 
care for you and have your meals brought to 
you. I will go to the postoffice every day for 
your mail." My face was one blotch of raw 
sores. My eyes were nearly closed because of 
the poison from the black flies. 

The best remedy or preventive we have ever 
found against all insect pests of the northern 
woods, is smoked bacon rubbed onto the bare 
skin in generous quantities. Its presence is 
not essentially disagreeable. Objection to its 
use is prejudice, since it is no less pleasant than 
is the oil of cedar or pennyroyal which are often 
prescribed by druggists for the same purpose, 
and which are not half as continuous in their 
efficacy, because a little perspiration will neu- 

164 



tralize all of the good effects of the latter named 
remedies. Soap and water will remove the 
bacon grease when protection from flying in- 
sects is no longer desired. 

There are other and more interesting living 
things in the northern woods than black flies, 
to which statement I am willing to testify. I 
had been running some lines one summer, for 
the purpose of locating a tote road to some 
camps where work was to be prosecuted the 
following fall. It was known among the home- 
steaders, as well as trappers, that a large bear 
lived in that vicinity. On one occasion he had 
been caught in a "dead-fall" that had been set 
for him, and he had gotten out of it, leaving 
only some tufts of his hair. 

Alone, and while blazing a line for this pro- 
posed road, one sunny afternoon, I came onto 
a table-rock, in a little opening in the woods, 
where fifty feet in front of me lay a large pine 
tree that had blown down. As some small 
brush crackled under my feet, a bear, which 
I have ever since believed from descriptions 
that had previously been given me, was the 
much v/anted great bear, stood up in front of 
me, close by the fallen tree. Presumably he had 
been awakened from an afternoon nap. The 
only weapon that I possessed was what is 

165 



known as a boy's ax, the size and kind usually 
carried by land examiners. I had not sought 
this new acquaintance, nor did I at that moment 
desire a closer one, but mentally decided, and 
that quickly, that the wrong thing to do would 
be to make any effort to get to a place of safety. 
I therefore decided to stand my ground and to 
put up the best fight possible with my small ax, 
in case the bear insisted on a closer acquaint- 
ance. Why I should have laughed on such an 
occasion as this, I never have known, but the 
perfect helplessness of my situation seemed so 
ridiculous, that I broke into a loud laugh. I 
have often wondered why that bear at that 
moment seemed to think that he had seen 
enough of the man whom he faced. Certain 
it was, that he turned on his hind legs, leaped 
over the log, and disappeared, leaving only the 
occasional sound of a twig breaking under his 
feet. So well pleased was I with the less dis- 
tinct notes of the breaking twigs, that I waited 
and listened until I could no longer hear any 
of the welcome, receding music. The excite- 
ment having subsided, an inspection of the 
little ax revealed the fact that the head was 
nearly, but not quite off its handle. This in- 
cident has always been sufficient to convince 

166 







* * 






known as a boy's ax, the size and k 
carried by land examiners. I had not 
this new acquaintance 
desire a closer one, but merit 
that quickly, that the wrong 
be to make any effort to get to a place of safety. 
I therefore decided to stand my ground an 
put oest fight possible with n 

in case the bear insisted on a closer acquaint- 
ance, Why I should have laughed on such an 
occasion as this, I never have known, but the 
perfect helplessness of my situation seeme* 
ridiculous, that I broke into a loud laugh. 1 
have often wondered why that bear at that 
•emed he had seen 

an who, faced. Cer 

fhat he turned on hiy egs, ieapec 

over the log, and disappeared, leaving only the 

rial sound of a twig breaking under his 
feet. So well pleased was I with the less dis- 
tinct notes of the breaking twigs, that I waited 
and listened until I could no longer hear any 
of the welcome, receding music. The excite- 
ment having subsided, an inspection of the 
little ax revealed the fact that the head 
nearly, but not quite ofi 
cident has always been 




•a .3 
•a .a 
•3 o 



me that I have no desire to approach nearer to 
this animal of the northern woods. 

In the summer of 1899, some special work 
was required north of Grand Rapids, Minne- 
sota. Accompanied by my son, Frank Merton, 
and a cook named Fred Easthagen, I left Grand 
Rapids on a buckboard drawn by two horses 
and driven by Dan Gunn, the popular pro- 
prietor of the Pokegama Hotel. Our route was 
over a new road where stumps and pitch holes 
were plentiful. The team of horses was said 
to have been raised on the western plains, and 
objected strenuously to being driven over this 
stump road. One of the horses balked fre- 
quently, and, when not standing still, insisted 
on running. The passengers, except East- 
hagen, became tired of this uneven mode of 
travel, and preferred to walk, being able to 
cover the ground equally as fast as the team. 
Easthagen, however, sat tight through it all; 
he having come from the far West, refused to 
walk when there was a team to pull him. 

Our camp was made in a fine grove of pig- 
iron Norway, near to which dwelt Mr. and Mrs. 
Sandy Owens, settlers upon government land. 
From this camp we were able to prosecute our 
work for a long period of time. The late sum- 
mer and autumn were very dry. Both wolves 

167 



and deer abounded in this vicinity, and not far 
away ranged many moose. Large lumbering 
camps were about ten miles away. Oxen had 
been turned loose for the summer, to pasture 
in the woods and cut-over lands. Passing, one 
day, a root house built into the side of a hill, we 
pushed open the door, and in there found the 
remains of an ox. The animal had probably 
entered the root house to get away from the 
flies, and, the door having closed behind him, 
he had no means of escape, so that the poor 
beast had perished of hunger and thirst. The 
ground was dry, and all the brush, and twigs, 
and leaves lying thereon, had become brittle 
and crackled under the feet of every walking 
creature. This interfered much with the ability 
of the wolves to surprise the deer, rabbits, or 
other animals on which they are accustomed to 
feed, so that they were hungry. On this ac- 
count they had become emboldened, so much 
so, that they would, at nightfall or toward 
evening, venture near enough to show them- 
selves. 

My son was coming in alone, from work one 
evening, when a pack of wolves followed him 
for some distance, occasionally snapping out 
their short yelp, and had he been less near the 
camp, he might have been in great danger. 

168 



As it was, however, they kept back from him 
in the woods, but not so far as to prevent his 
hearing them. 

An interesting article appeared in one of the 
numbers of "Country Life in America," on the 
subject of breeding skunks for profit. From 
their pelts is made and sold a fine quality of 
fur, known, to the purchaser, at least, as stone 
martin. The nearest approach to a natural 
farm of these animals that I have ever known 
was that existing at Sandy Owen's cabin, and 
immediately adjacent to it. These little ani- 
mals were numerous in the Norway grove in 
which we were camped. 

My son and I slept in a small "A" tent which 
at night was closed. On one occasion I was 
awakened by feeling something moving across 
my feet on the blankets, covering us. I spoke 
quietly to my son, requesting him to be careful 
not to move, for something was in the tent, 
and probably, that something was a skunk. 
With the gentlest of motions, I moved just suf- 
ciently to let the animal know that I was aware 
of its presence in the tent. Immediately the 
animal retreated off of my legs, while we re- 
mained quiet for some time in the tent. Then 
a match was struck and with it a candle lighted, 
when a small hole was discovered at the foot 

169 



of the tent where evidently the animal had 
nosed its way in, and through which it had 
retreated. In the morning when my son and 
I arose, unmistakable evidence was discovered, 
near where our heads had lain, that his skunk- 
ship had visited us during the night. 

Mr. and Mrs. Owens left their cabin to visit 
another settler, several miles distant, leaving 
the key with the cook, and telling him that he 
could use it if he had occasion to do so. Com- 
ing in one evening from a cruise, the cook went 
to the cabin to make and bake some bread in 
Mrs. Owen's stove. A small hole had been 
cut in the door, to admit the Owens' cat. On 
entering, Easthagen saw a skunk sitting in the 
middle of the floor. The animal retreated 
under the bed, while the cook kindled a fire 
in the stove and began mixing the dough for 
the bread. He baked the bread and cooked 
the evening meal for three persons, consider- 
ately tossing some bits of bread and meat near 
to where the skunk was concealed. Our party 
ate supper outside the door a short distance 
from the cabin. The animal remained in the 
cabin that night and until after breakfast, a 
portion of which latter the cook fed to it, when 
taking the broom, he, by easy and gentle 

170 



stages, pushed the skunk toward the door, re- 
moving the animal without accident. 

The state of Minnesota has some excellent 
laws to prevent the destruction of game ani- 
mals by the pothunter. Notwithstanding this 
fact, a greater or less number of market hunt- 
ers have been able to subsist by killing unlawful 
game and selling the meat to the lumber camps 
at about five cents per pound. Many men in- 
terested in the ownership of timber lands, have 
been aware of this fact and have been desirous 
of preventing the unlawful killing of moose and 
deer. Some lumbermen, also, have refused to 
buy the meat from these market hunters. It 
has not been safe, however, for such people 
to offer evidence against these hunters. There 
have been two principal reasons that have 
deterred them from so doing. One is, that 
the informant's personal safety would have 
become endangered, and the other reason is, 
that his timber would have been in danger of 
being set on fire. It rests, therefore, with the 
game wardens, to ferret out and prosecute to 
the best of their ability, all offenders against 
the game law. 

In the latter part of the season of 1905, my 
son and I, accompanied by James O'Neill, a 
frontiersman and trusty employee, made a 

171 



canoe trip from Winton down the chain of 
lakes on the boundary line between Minnesota 
and Canada, as far as Lake La Croix. We 
camped at night and traveled by day, being 
always in Minnesota. We saw racks in Min- 
nesota made by the Indians, on which to smoke 
the meat of the moose they had killed. We 
counted twenty-one moose hides hung up to 
dry. The moose had doubtless been killed as 
they came to the lakes to get away from flies 
and mosquitoes. All these animals were un- 
lawfully killed. 

A more pleasant sight than the one just re- 
lated was once accorded us while working in 
this same country. We were quietly pushing 
our canoes up a sluggish stream that had found 
its bed in a spruce swamp. There, in many 
places, pond lilies were growing, their wide 
leaves resting on the surface of the water. 
The roots of the lilies are much relished as a 
food by the moose. We have seen the moose 
standing out in the bays of the lakes, and in 
the almost currentless streams, where the 
water was up to the animal's flanks, or where 
its body was half immersed, and poking its 
head deep below the surface in search of the 
succulent roots of the lilies. On this day, a 
mother moose and her twin calves had come 

172 




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2 




m 


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OC 


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01 


u 


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43 




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u 


go 


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as 2 



to this stream to feed. She was in the act of 
reaching down under the water for a lily root, 
as we pushed our canoes quietly over the sur- 
face of the water into her very presence. The 
first to observe us was one of the young calves 
not more than two days old, that rose to its 
feet, close by on the shore. The mother looked 
toward her calf before she saw us; then, with- 
out undue haste, waded ashore. At this mo- 
ment the second calf arose, shook itself, then, 
with the other twin, joined its mother. The 
three moved off into the spruce swamp as we 
sat quietly in our canoes, enjoying to the full- 
est this most unusual opportunity of the ex- 
perienced woodsman, accustomed as he is to 
surprises. Our only regret on this occasion 
was, that we had no camera with us. 



173 




CHAPTER XXII. 

White Pine— What of Our 
Future Supply? 

T is claimed that where Dartmouth 
College is, in the town of Hanover, 
New Hampshire, on the bank of the 
Connecticut River, there once stood 
a white pine tree two hundred and seventy 
feet in height. That is said to have been the 
tallest white pine of which there is a record. 
Of the thirty-seven species of pine that grow 
in the United States, the white pine is the best. 
Nature was lavish in distributing this beau- 
tiful and useful tree on American soil, for it 
has been found growing in twenty-four states 
of the Union. 

The following quotation is from Bulletin 99 
of the Forest Service of the United States: 

"White pine occurred originally in com- 
mercial quantities in Connecticut, Delaware, 
Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, 
Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minne- 
sota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, 
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode 
Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, 
Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The 

174 



cut has probably exceeded that of any other 
species. Several timber trees have a wider 
commercial range, and at the present time two 
yield more lumber yearly — Douglas fir and 
longleaf pine — but white pine was the leader 
in the market for two hundred and fifty years. 
Though to-day the original forests of this 
species are mere fragments of what they once 
were, the second growth in small regions is 
meeting heavy demand. In Massachusetts, 
for example, the cut in 1908 was two hundred 
and thirty-eight million feet, and practically 
all of it was second growth. It is not improb- 
able that a similar cut can be made every year 
in the future from the natural growth of white 
pine in that state. It might be shown by a 
simple calculation that if one-tenth of the orig- 
inal white pine region were kept in well- 
protected second growth, like that in Massa- 
chusetts, it would yield annual crops, success- 
fully for all time, as large as the white pine 
cut in the United States in 1908. To do this 
would require the growth of only twenty-five 
cubic feet of wood per acre each year, and good 
white pine growth will easily double that 
amount. The supply of white pine lumber 
need never fail in this country, provided a mod- 

175 



erate area is kept producing as a result of 
proper care. 

"During the past thirty years the largest cut 
of white pine has come from the Lake States, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota." 

It is shown in the government's reports that 
forty-eight per cent of the total lumber output 
of the United States in 1908 was pine. If 
something near this ratio is to be maintained, 
it must be by planting and growing the trees. 
Under the present system of taxation, neither 
individuals nor corporations will undertake the 
work. The investment, at the shortest, is one 
of thirty years before returns may be looked 
for, while twice that time is better business. 
Owners o£ pine forests are obliged now, and 
have been in past years, to cut their timber 
lands clean because of excessive taxation. To 
encourage the planting and cultivation of new 
pine forests, it would be better to levy no tax 
upon the individual's or corporation's young 
trees until the time that the timber has grown 
to a size fit to be marketed, and then only on 
that portion which is cut into lumber. Even 
with this encouragement it is an enterprise that 
belongs largely to the state, and from it must 
emanate the aggressive movement upon land 
belonging to the state. 

176 



On the subject of "Reforestation with White 
Pine," Prof. E. G. Cheyney, Director of the 
College of Forestry in the University of Min- 
nesota, states: "Like everything else, a tree 
does better on good soil, but the pine tree has 
the faculty of growing well on soil too poor 

for any other crop On the best 

quality of soil the white pine tree has produced 
100 M feet per acre in Europe. On the third 
quality soil it makes from 40 to 60 M feet. Our 
forest soils are, on the whole, of better quality 
than those devoted to forests in Europe. 

"The Forest Experiment Station at Cloquet, 
under the control of the College of Forestry, 
is now studying this reforestation policy, and 
the State Forest Service is looking after the 
forest fires and expects to begin the reforesta- 
tion of our State Forests this spring. 

"There are now two National Forests in 
Minnesota aggregating about 1,300,000 acres 
and only 50,000 acres of State Forest. These 
State Forests should be increased to at least 
3,000,000 acres." 



177 




CHAPTER XXIII. 

Retrospect — Meed of Praise. 

T is hoped that the foregoing pages 
have thrown some light upon the 
peculiar occupation of the pioneer 
woodsman as he is related to lumber- 
ing in the Northwest. There has been no at- 
tempt to do more than to give a plain recital 
of some of the events that have occurred in the 
experiences of one man while pioneering in 
this special field of the great timber and lum- 
bering industry of the Northwest. Another, 
engaged in the same pursuit, might easily re- 
late his personal experiences of equal or greater 
scope than have been herein portrayed, for 
not all has been said that might be of the 
woodsman's secluded life. 

The occupation of this type of man is fast 
being eliminated, and soon his place will be 
known no more. In fact, the time has already 
arrived when there is no longer any primeval 
forest in the Northwest into which he may 
enter and separate himself from others of his 
own race. Railroads have been built in many 
directions into these vast forests, and the fine, 
stately pine trees have been cut down and sent 

178 




-C as 



<J= ca 



a -5 



Oh 5" 



out over the lines of these railroads. Men 
and their families have come from various 
states and from foreign countries, and are still 
coming to make for themselves homes on the 
lands now denuded of their once majestic for- 
est trees towering high, and overshadowing 
all the earth beneath with their green branches 
and waving plumage. 

The neigh of the horse, the low of the cow 
or the ox, and the laugh or song of the child 
is now heard where twenty years ago in sum- 
mer time, stalked fearlessly the moose and the 
deer, where roamed the bear at will, un- 
molested, safe from the crack of the white 
man's rifle. 

The schoolhouse springs into existence, 
where a year ago were stumps and trees. The 
faithful teacher, fresh from one of the normal 
schools or colleges of the state, comes into 
the settlement to train the minds and to help 
mould the characters of the future farmers, 
mechanics, statesmen, or financiers; of the 
doctors, lawyers, judges; or honored wives 
and mothers. From this ever increasing sup- 
ply of the newly-born Northwest, are coming 
and will continue to come, some of the most 
valued accretions of good citizens to the com- 
monwealth of Minnesota. 

179 



Farms are yielding their first crops to the 
sturdy husbandman. Pleasant, comfortable 
homes meet the eye of the tourist from the city 
in summer as he motors over the fairly good 
roads of the northern frontier. He enters 
little towns carved out of the woods, and finds, 
now living happily, friends whom he had known 
in the city, who are ready to welcome him. 
He camps by the roadside on the shore of a 
lake, or on the bank of the Mississippi whose 
waters flowed on unobstructed in the earlier 
days herein recorded, but now are harnessed 
for the better service of man. Here he brings 
his family and friends to fish and to lunch, or, 
better still, to prepare their fish just caught for 
the meal, by the open camp fire. He continues 
his journey through this unbroken wilderness 
of less than a generation ago, over improving 
roads, to the very source of the Mississippi 
River that is within five minutes' walk of Lake 
Itasca. Here is a refreshing bit of natural pine 
forest, owned and preserved by the state of 
Minnesota, where he and his friends may find 
shelter for the night, and for a longer period if 
desired. 

In concluding this subject, I am actuated by 
a desire to manifest my appreciation of the fine 
manhood possessed by many men whom I have 

180 



known, the best part of whose lives has been 
spent similarity to my own, in the extensive 
forests that once beautified and adorned the 
great Northwest. 

The occupation is one which demands many 
of the highest attributes of man. He must be 
skillful enough as a surveyor to always know 
which description of land he is on, and where 
he is on that description. He must be a good 
judge of timber, able to discern the difference 
between a sound tree and a defective one, as 
well as to estimate closely the quantity and 
quality of lumber, reckoned in feet, board 
measure, each tree will likely produce when 
sawed at the mill. He must examine the con- 
tour of the country where the timber is, and 
make calculations how the timber is to be 
gotten out, either by water or by rail, and 
estimate how much money per thousand feet 
it will cost, to bring the logs to market. The 
value of the standing pine or other timber in 
the woods is dependent on all of these condi- 
tions, which must be reckoned in arriving at 
an estimate of the desirability of each tract of 
timber as an investment for himself, or for 
whomsoever he may represent. 

Possessing these qualifications, he must also 
be honest; he must be industrious; he must be 

181 



courageous. He must gain the other side of 
rivers that have no bridges over them, and he 
must cross lakes on which there are no boats. 
He must find shelter when he has no tent, and 
make moccasins when his shoes are worn and 
no longer of service, and new ones are not to 
be obtained; he must be indefatigable, for he 
will often be tempted to leave some work half 
finished rather than overcome the physical ob- 
stacles that lay between him and the com- 
pletion of his task. 

On the character of this man and on his 
faithfulness, his honesty, his conscientiousness, 
and on the correctness of his knowledge con- 
cerning the quality, quantity, and situation as 
to marketing the timber he examines, depends 
the value of the investments. Hundreds of 
thousands of dollars are invested on the word 
of this man, after he has disappeared into the 
wilderness and emerged with his report of 
what he has seen. The requisitions of man- 
hood for this work are of a very high degree, 
and, when such a man is found, he is entitled 
to all of the esteem that is ever accorded to an 
honest, faithful, conscientious cashier, banker, 
or administrator of a large estate. 

Is he required to furnish an illustrious ex- 
ample to prove the worthiness of his chosen 

182 




'He continues his journey ... to the very source 
of the Mississippi River". (Page 180.) 



occupation, let him cite to the inquirer the 
early manhood days of George Washington, 
who penetrated the forests from his home in 
Virginia, traveling through a country where 
savages roamed, pushing his course westward 
to the Ohio River in his search for valuable 
tracts of land for investment, and surveying 
lands for others than himself. 

His occupation is an honorable one, and 
those who pursue it with an honest purpose, 
are accorded a high place in the esteem of 
those whom they serve, and with whom they 
associate. 



The Pines. 

"We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines; 
The gray moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock 

our lines, 
And deeper we clutch through the gelid gloom where 

never a sunbeam shines. 



We spring from the gloom of the canyon's womb; in the 

valley's lap we lie; 
From the white foam-fringe, where the breakers cxinge, 

to the peaks that tusk the sky, 
We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that 

gleams like a golden eye. 

183 



Gain to the verge of the hog-back ridge where the vision 

ranges free; 
Pines and pines and the shadow of pines as far as the eye 

can see; 
A steadfast legion of stalwart knights in dominant em- 

pery. 

Sun, moon and stars give answer; shall we not staunchly 

stand 
Even as now, forever, wards of the wilder strand, 
Sentinels of the stillness, lords of the last, lone land?" 



, 184 



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